Kolkata Knight Riders blew away Mumbai Indians at Maharashtra Cricket Association Stadium, Pune in the Indian Premier League. MI was desperate to get this win under their belt as they are yet to get the first points on the board this campaign. Shreyas Iyer won the toss and decided to field, importantly Rohit Sharma wanted to bat first as well. Surya Kumar Yadav made his comeback to the team in a brilliant way and looked in great touch with the bat.
He made a superb 36-ball 52 to help MI post a challenging total of 161/4. KKR’s top order is yet to fire this season as wickets kept falling at regular intervals before a certain Pat Cummins came at the crease and just played one of the most exciting innings of 56 not out of just 15 balls to get KKR over the line with four overs to spare. Let us look at the talking points from the game –
Rohit Sharma’s poor run with the bat continues
If there is one batsman in IPL who enjoys batting against KKR, it’s Rohit Sharma. His record against KKR is something incredible but in this game, he looked completely out of touch from the very first ball. Inform Umesh Yadav dominated him in the first over and took his wicket with a short pitch delivery to give KKR an early breakthrough.
SKY looked in good touch after returning to the team
No MI batter looked at their best against KKR bowling until SKY arrived. It was looking difficult for MI to go past 130 at one point but the 31-year-old accelerated the innings with Tilak Verma and put up a brilliant partnership. His innings of 52 were laced with 2 sixes and 5 boundaries which helped Mumbai to score 161.
KKR top order fails again
KKR’s top order failed again apart from Venkatesh Iyer in this game. Ajinkya Rahane, Shreyas Iyer, and Andre Russell all failed to pull the short pitch balls and got dismissed very early along with Nitish Rana who got dismissed on a single-digit score again. Venkatesh played a brilliant knock of 50 not out and even he also did not middle the ball on most occasions.
Pat Cummins – the finisher
The game was shifting towards MI after the dismissal of Andre Russel but the KKR’s Australian pacer had other ideas. Cummins came into bat when KKR were 101/5 in the 13th over. In a pitch where almost everyone struggled to middle the ball, Cummins hit the joint-fastest half-century in the IPL to blow away the Mumbai bowling attack. His incredible unbeaten knock of 56 of just 15 balls helped KKR chase down the score with 4 overs to spare as he hit 35 off one over of Daniel Sams. This knock surprised everyone even himself.
“I probably think am most surprised by that innings. Glad that it came off. I was thinking of having a swing if it was in my area. Was not trying to overthink it,” Cummins said at the post-match press presentation ceremony.
The Australian added, “Very satisfying to do it on my first game this season. Was just trying to pepper the shorter boundary. The hard thing after a big auction is that there are a lot of changes from last year. It’s a good mix of talent out there and quite relaxed with the boys.”
