Mumbai Indians (MI) beat Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) by four wickets in a thrilling encounter at the Wankhede stadium in Mumbai. With this, MI registered their first win in the 2017 IPL.
Chasing 179 to win, Mumbai got off to a good start, thanks to their opening batsmen, who put on 65 runs in the first seven overs before Parthiv Patel was dismissed by Kuldeep Yadav for 30. Mumbai had a rough patch of play as they lost Jos Buttler and captain Rohit Sharma, thanks to a couple of blunders from the on-field umpires.
Kolkata bowlers brought their team back into the play with some disciplined bowling. With 60 needed off the last four overs, Chris Woakes dismissed Kieron Pollard and it was when Nitish Rana and Hardik Pandya stitched together a 41-run partnership in just 14 balls.
Nitish departed after scoring a fifty while Hardik was focussed on taking his team home. With 11 needed off the last over, Hardik Pandya’s heroics along with some sloppy fielding took Mumbai home with a ball to spare. Hardik remained unbeaten on 29 off 11 balls.
Earlier in the day, Manish Pandey’s unbeaten 81 helped Kolkata post 178/7 in their 20 overs. Here is how the world reacted to Mumbai’s win.
Mumbai Indians’ captain Rohit Sharma: “Winning the game was important, I know it was a close finish. But that's what Mumbai Indians are known for. Important win moving forward. Here at Wankhede, we back players to go for the runs. It's such a good wicket to bat on.
“Both, Nitish and Hardik, have been batting very well. They held their nerve in the end and I'm glad to end on a winning note. Very important moving forward for any team to have those young players batting well. Like I said, job not yet done. It's just the second game. But it feels great to be on the winning side. There's always room for improvement.
“You move forward as a group. We don't want to take anything for granted. That's what we'll be doing in the next few games. We are aware of the things we didn't do well and will go back to the drawing board.”
Kolkata Knight Riders’ captain Gautam Gambhir: “The last three overs we put a good score on the board and 179 was defendable. Hardik played an unbelievable innings and so did Nitish. But had we taken the catch, things would have been different.
“We do back our bowlers to do the job; Trent (Boult) and Chris (Woakes) are experienced campaigners. Anything would have happened if we had taken the catch or had Surya stopped the four. It is a good chasing ground and there was dew around.
“The spinners were finding it difficult to grip the ball, but we could have won it had it not been for the last three overs. I still do not have any update on Lynn's injury.”
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