- Mumbai Indians beat Kolkata Knight Riders by 102 runs at Eden Gardens.
- Mumbai Indians: 210 for 6 in 20 overs (Ishan Kishan 62; Piyush Chawla 3/48)
- Kolkata Knight Riders: 108 all out in 18.1 overs (Chris Lynn 21, Nitish Rana 21; Krunal Pandya 2/12, Hardik Pandya 2/16)
Led by an inspirational batting performance by 19-year-old Ishan Kishan, Mumbai Indians beat Kolkata Knight Riders by a massive 102 runs at the Eden Gardens on Wednesday night.
The massive victory margin in Mumbai’s second-biggest IPL win, after their 146 runs victory over Delhi Daredevils in IPL 2017. It, however, is KKR’s biggest defeat ever.
Sent into bat at the Eden Gardens, defending champions Mumbai Indians scored 210/6 with young keeper Ishan Kishan leading the way with his 21-ball 62 that featured five fours and six sixes.
To follow up the top-notch performance by the batsmen, Mumbai’s bowlers got KKR all out on 108 in 18.1 overs. Krunal Pandya and his brother Hardik returned with figures of 2/12 and 2/16 respectively while all the other five MI bowlers took a wicket each.
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Following the victory, their third on the trot, MI jump up to the fourth spot in the IPL standings with 10 points from 11 matches. KKR also have the same 10 points from 11 matches but they are below MI at fifth due to their net run rate.
Mumbai’s Innings
Ishan smashed a 17-ball half-century as MI overcame a slow start to post an imposing 210/6.
Ishan tore apart KKR bowling, especially Kuldeep Yadav who was clobbered for four consecutive sixes, en route to his 21-ball 62 (5x4, 6x6) as MI scripted a turnaround in the middle overs.
The momentum shifted in favour of MI in the 14th over that yielded 25 runs with Ishan making a mockery of chinaman Kuldeep's bowling. The bulk of Mumbai's runs -- 148 -- came from boundaries.
First, Ishan swept Kuldeep high over deep square leg, then smashed across the line, followed by stepping out to hit the bowler over long on to get to his fifty -- the joint second fastest of the season with Sunil Narine.
Ishan ended the over with a helicopter shot that would surely make his Ranchi mentor MS Dhoni smile as MI scored 73 runs in five middle overs to reach to 145/3 in 15 overs from being a modest 72/2 midway into their innings.
After Ishan, it was Cutting show as he hit the first three balls of the final over for a six each en route to his nine-ball 24 (1x4, 3x6) as MI finished on a high with 22 runs in the final over bowled by Piyush Chawla.
Kuldep retrurned most expensive with 43 runs from his three overs, followed by Chawla who took 3/48 but was at his expensive best.
But the picture looked different midway into MI's innings with Sunil Narine (1/27) giving them the initial edge after Dinesh Karthik opted to chase.
Openers Suryakumar Yadav (36) and Evin Lewis (18) once again gave MI a flying start with the KKR pace trio of Andre Russell, Prasidh Krishna and Tom Curran leaking 24 runs in the first three overs.
Chawla gave the breakthrough in the sixth over as Mumbai batsmen looked to break free against the leg-spinner who accounted for both the openers. Mumbai were 62/2 inside nine overs.
Kolkata’s Chase
Chasing an imposing target of 211, KKR suffered a batting collapse under some fine bowling and fielding show by MI who needed a win to keep afloat in the tournament.
Chris Lynn and Nitish Rana top-scored with 21 each while all the other KKR batsmen came a cropper. Their highest partnership was 31 between Lynn and Uthappa (14) for the second wicket.
KKR made a disastrous start to their run chase as Sunil Narine (4) was out in the second ball, top-edging a Mitchell McClenaghan short delivery to Krunal Pandya. Lynn and Uthappa was going strong for some time. But a horrible mixed up in the fourth over led to Lynn being run out as the home side were reduced to 32 for two.
The two wickets meant KKR were lagging behind in the powerplay overs as they could score just 47 from the first six overs at the expense of two wickets.
Uthappa was the third batsman to go as he hit straight to Suryakumar Yadav at deep midwicket off a Mayank Markande delivery in the seventh over and Andrew Russell followed suit the next over, after being deceived by a Hardik Pandya slow delivery.
KKR were in deep trouble by then with half of their batting line up gone in the ninth over for just 67 runs. Captain Dinesh Karthik (5) could not extricate his side and he was run out in the 10th over.
McClenaghan then held on to a brilliant running catch to dismiss Rana the next ball and the match was as good as over for KKR by then.
The asking rate has gone up to an impossible 20 with the tails up but the match lingered on a bit before Krunal Pandya wrapped up the match by dismissing Kuldeep Yadav (5).
(With inputs from PTI)
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