IPL 2021: Kolkata Knight Riders take Mumbai Indians to top four

IPL 2021: Kolkata Knight Riders players celebrate the wicket of Devdutt Padikkal of Royal Challengers Bangalore during the 31st match of the VIVO Indian Premier League between Kolkata Knight Riders and Royal Challengers Bangalore at the Sheikh Zayed Stadium in Abu Dhabi. (SportzPics for IPL/PTI photo)

Rookie Venkatesh Iyer left many with his brilliance as Kolkata Knight Riders put up a clinical performance for the second straight game since the resumption of the IPL and beat the mighty Mumbai Indians by seven wickets here on Thursday. Entered the top-four in the table.

Iyer (53 off 30), playing his second IPL game, displayed his wide range of strokes along with Rahul Tripathi (74 not out on 42), helping KKR take MI’s total of 155 for six. With 29 balls to spare. .

Quinton de Kock played an entertaining 55 for MI before the KKR bowlers took five for 75 in the last 10 overs.

Shubman Gill and Iyer gave KKR another good start by conceding 15 runs in the first two overs bowled by Trent Boult and Adam Milne.

Gill smacked Boult for a scintillating six while Iyer pulled the New Zealand pacer to set the tone for the rest of the innings.

While Jasprit Bumrah found Gill’s stumps in the third over, Iyer played a memorable innings of four fours and three sixes.

Iyer and Tripathi put on an 88-run stand for the second wicket, which completely closed the door for MI, who suffered their second loss since the resumption of the IPL.

Earlier, MI skipper Rohit Sharma (33 off 30) opened the innings in fine fashion, taking the delivery to the mid-off boundary by Nitish Rana. The captain, who performed brilliantly in Tests in England, did not play the first match against CSK.

Star all-rounder Hardik Pandya once again did not start, raising questions on his fitness.

Rohit opened the fourth over with the help of two consecutive fours off the ball of mystery spinner Varun Chakraborty.

De Kock was not to be left behind as he matched his skipper stroke for stroke, pulling Lockie Ferguson over the fence for the first maximum of the match.

Introduced to the attack in the sixth over, Prasidh Krishna was challenged by de Kock, hitting the medium pacer twice over the fence and taking 16 runs from his first over as MI scored 56 for no loss.

De Kock looked unstoppable as we greet Andre Russell with successive fours. Morgan trump card to dismiss Chakraborty in the 11th over (4-0-22-0) and MI did not lose a single wicket against him.

Sunil Narine was also running clean conceding only 20 runs in four overs.

With de Kock’s hammer and tongs, Rohit played the second fiddle and scored 33 off 30 balls before Narine made his man for the ninth time in T20Is, dismissing Shubman Gill over the boundary.

KKR pulled things back between 10-15 overs, conceding only 26 runs and taking two wickets.

Pollard, as he often does, came up with much-needed big hits in the final five overs, including a flat batting at mid-wicket off Krishna’s 18-run over.

Ferguson bowled a brilliant last over for KKR after getting out the dangerous pair of Pollard and Krunal Pandya (12) for just six runs.
Mumbai scored 49 runs in the last five overs.