Mumbai Indians have continued their domination over Kolkata Knight Riders by thumping them at Abu Dhabi by 49 runs.
KKR won the toss and with dew to play part in the second innings decided to field first. Mumbai Indians lost De Kock in 2nd over to Shubham Mavi. In came Surya Kumar Yadav and in the company of Rohit launched a counter-attack as MI reached 83 in 8 overs with both batsmen playing big shots with perfection. Then after a couple of quiet overs, Surya was run out while hesitatingly going for a second run and MI were 98/2 in 11 overs.
Unacademy Lets Crack It Sixes of the Match award goes to Rohit Sharma.@unacademy #LetsCrackIt #Dream11IPL pic.twitter.com/yoEuxgxjoM
— IndianPremierLeague (@IPL) September 23, 2020
Saurabh Tiwary and Rohit Sharma continued to move the score forward with Tiwary hitting a six and four of a Cummins over to provide the impetus to innings. Narine removes Tiwary in his last over and conceded only 1 run in his last over to end his spell creditably with 1/22 of 4 overs. Rohit and Pandya continued the good work and scored quick runs with Pandya hitting Cummins for 19 runs in 17th over of innings Cummins, costliest bowler in the auction, had a forgettable outing as he was smashed for 49 in 3 overs.
Mavi, who had provided the first breakthrough and also bowled the first maiden over of this IPL, went back for his last 2 overs and took the wicket of Rohit Sharma who departed for 80 with 6 half a dozens. Pandya was out hit wicket to Russell in 19th over and Pollard hit some boundaries to help MI finish with 195/5, just about par score as was indicated by KKR coach Brendon McCullam as well. Mavi was the successful bowler with 2/ 32 of 4 overs.
— Mumbai Indians (@mipaltan) September 23, 2020
KKR opened the innings with Shubman Gill and Sunil Narine. Both openers found the MI Pacers too got to handle and could not give any launchpad to their coming batsman. Losing both openers inside power play and hardly any runs scored KKR were already out of chase by the first half of innings. Dinesh and Nitish led a mini recovery for the third wicket but KKR was behind the eight ball game and by the time Morgan and Russell came out in middle required run rate was around 12-13 runs over.
Russell could not have any impact and Bumrah ensured he did not by choking runs in middle phase by giving 4 and 2 runs in 13th and 16th overs. Every Mumbai bowler chipped in the wickets column, except Krunaland Boult also bowled the second maiden over of the match. KKR should thank Cummins for playing a cameo of 33 of 12 balls with 4 sixes which ensured margin of defeat is kept under 50.
All in all, it was a clinical performance by MI in all departments. KKR looked at best rusty in all departments and would like to improve and start winning. They would hope Cummins gets back to his best and starts hitting the hard lengths. As is the case with MI, Rohit scores – MI wins and it was no different. Surya Kumar also played good innings and would like to do the same to push his case for National team selection. MI record against KKR stands at 10-1 for last 11 matches. Going forward both teams would like to start winning matches to gain momentum in later stages of the tournament.
