Picture : Twitter / IPL
Kolkata Knight Riders became desperate to keep their play- offs alive as they brought in as many a five changes in the playing eleven against the bottom placed Mumbai Indians . And The KKP changes yielded result as they beat Mumbai Indians by a convincing 52 run the 56th match of the Tata IPL 2022 at the DY Patil stadium.
Rohit Sharma the Mumbai Indians skipper won the toss and elected to field first. Back in the side Venkatesh Iyer and at the top scored 43 ( 24 balls, 3 fours, 4 sixes) , Ajinkya Rahane finally getting another game after warming the bench after few opening matches struggled for big knock out for 25 . The openers though put on 60 in 5.4 overs for the first wicket. Nitish Rana 43 ( 26 balls, 3 fours , 4 sixes) , Skipper Shreyas Iyer flopping ( 6), Andre Russell ( 1), Rinku Singh not out ( 23) saw KKR finishing at at modest total of 165/ 9 in their 20 overs. Mumbai Bowlers had done well to restrict them .
For Mumbai Indians, finally Jasprit Bumrah delivered , though it has come late. Bumrah was outstanding with stunning figures of 5/ 10 ( 4 overs). The other bowling stats read : Daniel Sams 1/ 26 ( 4 overs), Murugan Ashwin 1/ 35 ( 4 overs) Riley Meredith 0/ 35 ( 3 overs) , Kumar Kartikeya 2/32 ( 3 overs), Kieron Pollard 0/ 26 ( 2 overs)
In reply , Mumbai Indians got off to a horror start as Skipper Rohit Sharma , who has had a forgettable tournament was out early for (2) dismissed by Kiwi Tim Southee for the fifth time . If Virat Kohli has struggled for runs, Rohit Sharma too has struggled for runs. The big innings from him has never come in this season. Tilak Varma soon followed for ( 6), Ishan Kishan battled hard for his 51 ( 43 balls , 5 fours, 1 six), Suryakumar Yadav absence was felt with replacement Ramandeep Singh scoring only ( 12) . The cameo from Taim David like last time never came this time around out for ( 13), Kieron Pollard may have played his last for the Mumbai Indians this season as he was dismissed yet again for a poor ( 15) . Pollard has hardly looked the player he was. That has hurt Mumbai Indians big time. Mumbai choking at th echase much to the disbelief of skipper Rohit Shjarma at the dug-out were bowled out for 113/ 10 in 17. 3 overs. Mumbai Indians running between the wickets was terrible with as many as three run-outs ( Kieron Pollard, Kumar Kartikeya, Jasprit Bumrah)
KKR held on with their bowlers stepping up. Back in the eleven after he was surprisingly benched , Australia’s Test Skipper Pat Cummins led the KKR charge with a fine spell of bowling taking 3/ 22 in his four overs ( all three wickets in one over) . Tim Southee 1/ 10 ( 3 overs) , Andre Russell 2/ 22 ( 2.3 overs), Sunil Narine 0/ 21 ( 4 overs) , Varun Chakaravarthy 1/ 22 ( 3 overs) , Venkatesh Iyer 0/ 8 ) 1 over) played the support roles .
