In what was a battle between two of the top contenders for the title, Kolkata Knight Riders played host to Mumbai Indians at the iconic Eden Gardens. Following a brief rain delay, skipper Gautam Gambhir won the toss and expectedly decided to back his team’s strength in chasing.
Despite losing an early wicket, Mumbai kept the scoreboard ticking. Playing his first game of this IPL season, Saurabh Tiwary opened the innings and registered a 43-ball 52. Ambati Rayudu’s aggressive half-century provided the impetus for the visitors to reach a formidable total of 173.
The Knight Riders’ chase began horribly wrong as the opposition seamers made plenty of early inroads. Even though the lower middle-order provided a rousing fight back, Mumbai stuck to their plans to complete a 9-run victory.
Here are five aspects that went wrong for KKR in this match.
#5 – Robin Uthappa’s costly miss
When Rayudu walked into the middle, the top-order had set a solid platform for him to control the flow of the innings. Taking the attack to the fast bowlers, the right-hander seized the initiative and came up with a stunning 63 off 37 deliveries including six fours as well as three sixes.
However, he could have been dismissed for just 10 had Robin Uthappa held on to a fairly uncomplicated chance behind the stumps. Sunil Narine’s wily line extracted a thin inside-edge which ricocheted onto the pad and came towards the wicket-keeper. However, he was unable to grab the opportunity. A wicket at that stage might have handed the momentum to the Knight Riders.
#4 – Not persisting with Kuldeep Yadav in the middle-overs
Mumbai’s innings was built on the 61-run partnership between Tiwary and Rayudu. While the former continued to rotate the strike, the latter targeted and found the boundaries on a regular basis. The duo kept the Knight Riders at bay by putting on a sensible display of batting on a tricky surface.
In this regard, Gambhir’s captaincy was a bit baffling. At a time when he needed to attack to try and procure wickets, the 35-year old allowed the batsmen to get themselves attuned to the middle-overs by opting for a combination of pace and spin. The decision to take Kuldeep out of the attack did not make much sense as the wrist-spinner had the ability to bowl in tandem with Narine.
#3 – Ankit Rajpoot not completing his spell
Even though he does not possess significant experience in the shortest format of the game, Ankit Rajpoot is one of the better seamers in India's domestic circuit. Capable of bowling at a decent pace, the right-armer has reasonable control to hold his own even in the end overs.
He bowled three overs in this game and conceded just 14 runs. More importantly, his variation to dismiss the dangerous Rohit Sharma was enough to earn at least a completed quota of overs. Surprisingly, Gambhir did not finish his spell despite having the opportunity to do so.
Another tight over from him could have gone a long way in reducing Mumbai’s total. But the skipper persisted with the more fancied Umesh Yadav who unfortunately was not having a good outing.
#2 – Losing wickets in a cluster
The general trend in KKR’s successful chases during this season has been the powerful starts provided by the likes of Sunil Narine, Chris Lynn and Gautam Gambhir. This time around, their pursuit of 174 started on a treacherous note as wickets tumbled one after another.
Southee’s clever piece of bowling accounted for Narine in the first over itself. Although Lynn and Gambhir joined hands to spark a brief stand, they fell in quick succession against well-directed short deliveries. In between, the in-form Uthappa also perished while trying to get on top of Karn Sharma’s tight stump-to-stump leg-spin. At 53/4, the game appeared to have slipped away from the home team’s reach.
#1 – Manish Pandey’s lack of acceleration
Yusuf Pathan launched a dazzling array of sixes to keep Rohit Sharma’s troops on their toes. When he succumbed to Vinay Kumar, Colin de Grandhomme kept the Knight Riders in the game by unleashing a flurry of boundaries. But he too had to return to the dressing room after Hardik Pandya outsmarted him.
Meanwhile, Manish Pandey was progressing at his own pace at the other end. Although the required run-rate never got out of hand, he could have applied enormous pressure on Mumbai by finding the fence during the game’s tipping point. Instead, he meandered to a run-a-ball 33 and made certain of the fact that his wicket would kill any hopes of a late revival.
A bit more urgency from him might have kept the tailenders interested in the chase.
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