Clinical KKR inflict crushing seven-wicket defeat on defending champions Mumbai Indians
KKR’s Rahul Tripathi (right) celebrates his half-century with teammate Venkatesh Iyer during their IPL match against Mumbai Indians at Abu Dhabi yesterday. Pic/BCCI, IPL
Rookie Venkatesh Iyer left many in awe of his talent as Kolkata Knight Riders produced a clinical performance for the second successive game since IPL’s resumption to tame the mighty Mumbai Indians by seven wickets and enter the top-four in the points table here on Thursday.
Iyer (53 off 30), playing his second IPL game, displayed his wide range of strokes alongside Rahul Tripathi (74 not out off 42 balls) to enable KKR to chase MI’s modest total of 155 for six with as many as 29 balls to spare.
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Quinton de Kock struck an entertaining 55 for MI before KKR bowlers bounced back in the last 10 overs, conceding 75 runs and taking five wickets.
Shubman Gill and Iyer gave KKR another flying start with the first two overs bowled by Trent Boult and Adam Milne resulting in the bowlers giving away 15 runs each.
Flying start
Gill flicked Boult for a delightful six while Iyer pulled the New Zealand pace spearhead to set the tone for the rest of the innings.
While Jasprit Bumrah found Gill’s stumps in the third over, Iyer went on to play a memorable knock, comprising four boundaries and three sixes.
Iyer and Tripathi shared an 88-run stand for the second wicket, which completely shut the door on MI, who suffered their second consecutive loss.
Earlier, MI skipper Rohit Sharma (33 off 30) started the innings in scintillating fashion, caressing a Nitish Rana delivery to the mid-off boundary.
The skipper, who was in sublime touch in the Tests in England, had not played in the opening game against CSK.
Star all-rounder Hardik Pandya did not start once again, raising questions about his fitness. Rohit took the attack to mystery spinner Varun Charkravarthy with two consecutive fours in opening two deliveries of the
fourth over. De Kock was not to be left behind as he matched his skipper stroke for stroke, pulling a Lockie Ferguson delivery over the fence for the first maximum of the match.
De Kock rocks
Introduced in the attack in the sixth over, Prasidh Krishna was taken to task by De Kock, hitting the medium pacer twice over the fence to pick up 16 runs from his first over.
De Kock welcomed Andre Russell with consecutive fours. Morgan bowled out trump card Chakravarthy by the 11th over (4-0-22-0) with MI not losing a wicket against him.
1,000
No. of runs Rohit Sharma has scored against KKR
Brief scores
MI 155-6 (De Kock 55, R Sharma 33; L Ferguson 2-27, P Krishna 2-43) lost to KKR 159-3 in 15.1 overs (R Tripathi 74*, V Iyer 53; J Bumrah 3-43) by seven wickets
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