Kolkata Knight Riders kept their hopes of making the play-offs alive after beating Mumbai Indians by 52 runs in the Indian Premier League on Monday with Pat Cummins-led bowlers’ impressive performance.
With this win, Knight Riders have 10 points from 12 matches and the team is in seventh place. Mumbai’s team is already out of the race for the play-offs and is in the last spot with four points from 11 matches.
Chasing the target of 166 runs set Knight Riders, Mumbai Indians never really got get going. For KKR, Cummins (3 for 22), Andre Russell (2 for 22) and Tim Southee (one wicket for 10 runs), it was all round bowling effort. Despite Kishan’s (51) half-century, he was bundled out for 113 runs in 17.3 overs.
Kolkata reached 165 with 43 runs by Venkatesh and Nitish. Venkatesh hit four fours and three sixes in his 24-ball knock, while Rana also hit the same number of fours and sixes in his 26-ball knock. Knight Riders posted their best performance of the current season at 64 for one in the Powerplay. Venkatesh welcomed Riley Meredith with fours and sixes in successive deliveries. He also hit a four and a six on Kumar Karthikeya Singh but the same left-arm spinner waved the ball in the air and caught Sams in cover. The run-rate declined after Venkatesh’s dismissal. Rahane hit fours off Murugan Ashwin and Kieron Pollard but Rana got off to a slow start.
Rana hit two consecutive sixes in the same over of Karthikeya to take the team’s score to 100 runs. Caught by Ishan Kishan.
Cummins’s over was the turning point
Cummins then returned to the bowling and got Kishan caught by Rinku at deep backward square leg on the very first ball. He faced 43 balls and hit five fours and a six.
Cummins also sent Daniel Sams (01) and Murugan Ashwin (00) to the pavilion in the same over. Both these balls were short and as a strategy, Cummins took the wickets of both the tail batsmen. Before this over, Mumbai remained in the match. But after that Mumbai lost 6 wickets in total of 13 runs.
Pat Cummins showed last season that he can bat. He played a lot in a losing match against Chennai last season. On 6 April, he scored 56 runs in just 14 minutes within 15 balls with the help of 4 fours and 6 sixes. Everyone was astonished by his batting.
Earlier, he also took 2 wickets in the bowling but he proved to be a bit expensive. He gave 49 runs in 4 overs at an economy of 12.25. But when he came out to bat, he had taken all the effort.
Cummins, one of the best bowlers in the world in the current era, equaled the record for the fastest half-century. Cummins equalized Lokesh Rahul’s fastest IPL half-century in just 14 balls as Knight Riders chased down Mumbai’s 162-run target with 24 balls to spare.