IPL 2016: Rohit strikes again at Eden as Mumbai Indians defeat KKR

Brief Scores: KKR 187/5 in 20/20 overs (Gambhir 64(52), Pandey 52(29), McClenaghan 2/25 ) lost to MI 188/4 in 19.1/20 overs (Rohit 84*(54), Buttler 41(22), Chawla 1/29) by six wickets

Hardik Pandya came in as the pinch-hitter for the second time in the tournament and once again left without giving the scorers much of a trouble. Mumbai Indians continued their experiment in the batting line-up and send in Mitchell McClenaghan next to up the scoring rate. The move provided much better results than the previous experiment with the left-hander smashing three sixes to score 20 runs off eight balls.

KKR returned with Andre Russell after the strategic time-out, but the strategy made no difference to Buttler as he took the all-rounder to the cleaners by smashing a four and two sixes off consecutive balls. The required run rate, which was 11 a few overs back had nosedived to 7.5 by the 17 over and the defending champions took care of the rest of the formalities and coasted to victory with five balls to spare. 

Earlier, after having contrasting starts to the IPL 2016, defending champions Mumbai Indians (MI) and 2014 Champions Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) clashed against each other at Kolkata in search of early momentum in their campaigns. Mumbai Indians, who lost their opening match to Rising Pune Supergiants by nine wickets, made three changes to the team for the match against KKR.Tim Southee replaced the injured Lendl Simmons, while Parthiv Patel and Jagadeesha Suchith came in for Shreyas Gopal and Vinay Kumar.

Although Uthappa found it hard in the middle, scoring runs proved to be an easy affair for Manish Pandey, who along with skipper Gambhir formed a 100-run partnership to set the team up for a huge total. Gambhir started the charge first, but it was the junior partner, who took all the applause by smashing Harbhajan, Suchith and Pandya for three sixes in his 52-run innings off 29 balls.

Gambhir, on the other hand, survived a scare, when he was on 30, after Rohit Sharma at midwicket dropped a sitter to give his opposite number a new life. The left-hander made the most of it and brought up his 27th IPL fifty in the 12th over and received a raucous applause from the Eden crowd.

The skipper tried to follow his West Indian partner, but failed miserably only managing top edges in the process. However, Mumbai Indians were in a mood to keep Gambhir in the middle and continued to give him life after life with Bumrah dropping a dolly off his own bowling in the 17th over. McClenaghan removed Russell the next over, and Pandya removed Gambhir in the 19th over with Parthiv Patel finally doing the job by removing the batsman to slow down the scoring rate. Yusuf Pathan and Colin Munro took the team to 187/5 at the end of 20 overs with some lusty blows to set the defending champions a daunting target.