KKR beat lackluster MI to keep playoff hopes alive

Jasprit Bumrah was back amongst wickets. His career-best IPL figures of five for 10 helped Mumbai Indians restrict Kolkata Knight Riders to 165 for nine after Rohit Sharma won the toss and chose to bowl first at DY Patil Stadium on Monday.

However, the dismissal of their captain Rohit Sharma in the first over and the inept batting by the MI top order combined with tight bowling by KKR who took wickets at regular intervals saw Bumrah’s figures go in vain.

Mumbai Indians, already out of the Play Offs race, were bowled out for 113 in 17.3 overs to give KKR a 52-run victory. In defending successfully for the first time this IPL in four matches that they batted first this season, KKR have kept alive their chances of finishing in the top four. With 10 points from 12 matches, they climbed from ninth to seventh position in the points table and need to win their remaining two matches to be in the race and play in the last week of IPL 2022.

KKR’s comeback man Pat Cummins took three wickets in an over while Andre Russell struck in each of his first and second overs to star in KKR win.

KKR made five changes to the playing 11 that crashed to a 75-run win to table toppers Lucknow Super Giants last Saturday. The opening partnership has been their bane this season with five different pairs tried in 11 previous matches before going back to the Venkatesh Iyer-Ajinkya Rahane duo that they started the season with.

Iyer, returning after missing two matches, and Rahane, back in the 11 after sitting out for nearly a month and six matches, gave KKR their best start. Rahane was the quieter of the two as Iyer went about playing his strokes, four sixes lacing his 43 off just 24 balls. He was quick to pull anything short, hammering leg-spinner Murugan Ashwin and left-arm pacer over mid-wicket with the horizontal shot while also slog sweeping left-arm slow bowler Kumar Karthikeya on the on-side and scooped Australian quick Riley Meredith behind for sixes.

Iyer took it upon himself to give KKR the start that they desperately wanted as they were very well aware that a loss on Monday means an end to their Play Offs hopes.

Rahane was cautious and consumed quite a few deliveries for his 25 before attempting a reverse sweep and was bowled, while captain Shreyas Iyer and the big-hitting Andre Russell fell to single-digit scores. Shreyas was caught behind to a classical leg-spinner’s dismissal while Russell, in his typical style of playing the horizontal shot and looking for maximum, failed to connect and ended up giving his fellow West Indian Kieron Pollard a catch at long-on.

Venkatesh apart, left-handed batsman Nitish Rana kept the KKR scoreboard moving, scoring an identical 43 runs, finding vast gaps in the outfield for boundaries, scoring identical three fours and four sixes as Venkatesh and consumed two extra deliveries before gloving Jasprit Bumrah to give the MI pacer his second wicket of the over, in MI’s 15^th.

Mumbai Indians suffered a major blow before the start of the match when Suryakumar Yadav, one of the few batsmen who has been scoring consistently in the team’s dismal show this season, was ruled out of the rest of the tournament. Yadav, who topped the MI batting averages at 43.28 after tallying 303 runs with three fifties in eight matches, suffered a left forearm muscle injury sustained in the previous match against Gujarat Titans.