Abu Dhabi: The 32nd match of the IPL4 ended in a one-sided clash between the Kolkata Knight Riders and the Mumbai Indians on Friday. The Mumbai Indians won the toss and elected to bat. KKR4 (6 points), on the other hand, remain unchanged in fourth place. This is Mumbai’s second victory in the ongoing IPL against Kolkata. Rohit Sharma’s team has won its fifth consecutive victory since the Super Bowl defeat to Bangalore. KKR9, however, suffered its second consecutive defeat. The best player of the match award was Quinton D’Cock.
Chasing the 14-run target, Mumbai’s two opening batsmen, Rohit Sharma and Quinton D’Cock, laid the foundation for a six-run partnership. Rohit returned to the pavilion with 35 runs off Shivam Mavi’s ball to catch Dinesh Karthik. Then came Suryakumar Yadav (10 runs), who came in to bat, before he was bowled out by Varun Chakraborty. The 4K, explosive (4 *, 7 balls) half-century helped Hardik Pandey (21 *, 11 balls) to a 3-1-over victory over the team. Winning was the first batting decision. Morgan (38 *, 29 balls, 2 fours, 2 sixes) was the innings wicket-taker. He added six runs in the fifth wicket partnership with Pat Cummins to bring the team score closer to one and a half hundred. Cummins (53 runs, 37 balls, 5 fours, 2 sixes) scored a half-century while Morgan was on guard. In the last ball of Yashpreet Bumjhara, who bowled in the 419th over, Cummins’ catch-taking wicket-keeper Quinton D’Cock missed the toss. It added 18 runs in the next over and 21 runs in the last over, bringing the Morgan-Cummins team score to 16. Rahul Tripathi (4), Nitish Rana (5) and Dinesh Karthik (4) failed, while Shubman Gill (23) and Andre Russell (12) scored some runs. With Mumbai, Rahul Chahar (2/17) and Bumjhara and Krunal Pandey being the most successful bowlers for Mumbai, Kolkata failed to score as much.
