IPL 9: Yusuf Pathan propels KKR to victory over Rising Pune Supergiants in rain-hit tie

Kolkata Kolkata Knight Riders jumped to second spot in the team standings after Yusuf Pathan powered them to an eight wicket win over Rising Pune Supergiants in a rainaffected tie of the Indian Premier League here todayThe inform Yusuf Pathan 37 off 18 helped KKR make short work of the DuckworthLewis target of 66 runs The hosts had nine overs to get home but Pathan ensured they raced to the finishing line in just five oversEarlier rain had halted play with the Supergiants struggling at 1036 in 174 oversWith the win KKR go second on the points table with 7 wins from 10 games while Pune stay at the bottomFor the Knights Yusuf Pathan and Manish Pandey remained unbeaten on 37 and 15 runs respectivelyThe hosts had a disastrous start to their runhunt with Gautam Gambhir 0 and Robin Uthappa4 both falling prey to Ravichandran Ashwin in the first over with the score reading 82However Pandey and Pathan were unfazed by the situation and started off on the highest gear Pandey first plundered 13 runs of the second over and then Pathan followed it up with a massive 22run over against RavichandranMurugan Ashwin too faced the wrath of Pathan as he belted him for a boundary and then a huge six down the ground in the 4th overPune had earlier struggled to 103 for six when rain stopped play for a little more than two hoursThe win pushed KKR to second spot in the standings with 14 points from 11 games Pune who are out of the competition remained at the bottom of the tableThe start to the short chase was exciting with Punes premier spinner Ravichandran Ashwin dismissing openers Robin Uthappa and opposition captain Gautam Gambhir in the very first over of the inningsUthappa was stumped on a viciously turning ball that ended up being a wide on the leg side while Gambhir was foxed by a straighter one off AshwinIn walked Pathan and tilted the game in his teams over by hammering Ashwin for two sixes and as many fours in his second over also settling the nerves in the KKR dug outEventually he got the team home comfortably in the company of Manish Pandey 15 off 10Earlier KKR had Pune in a real spot of bother with the visitors struggling to 1036 in 174 overs when rain interrupted play at the Eden GardensLegspinner Piyush Chawla claimed 221 with 13 dot balls while offie Sunil Narine returning after two matches gave away a miserly 10 runs from 34 overs bowling 14 dot balls to win the spin battle against MS Dhoni and CoWith KKR spinners making full use of the conditions the otherwise devastating Dhoni crawled to eight runs from 22 balls as his counterpart Gautam Gambhir relished the challenge deploying four fielders around the Indian skipperPune at one stage were at 703 and when Dhoni walked in they were 744 in 103 overs but by the time the rain interrupted the proceedings their runrate had slipped to less than sixOpting to bat on a turning surface Pune failed to get going at the top with Russell giving the first breakthrough in the third overTrying to hit across the line Rahane two played on a wide delivery as Russell gave KKR a perfect start bowling in tandem with More Morkel for four overs