IPL 2016: Rohit strikes again at Eden as Mumbai Indians defeat KKR
Rohit Sharma’s love-affair with the Eden Gardens continued as he smashed 84 off 54 balls to help Mumbai Indians register a six-wicket victory over Kolkata Knight Riders on Wednesday. Earlier, the home side had scored 187/5 in the first innings on the back of a 52-ball 64 from Gautam Gambhir.
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
Chasing a daunting target of 188, the reigning champions got off to a great start scoring fifty runs in the first five overs. With the seamers leaking runs, Gautam Gambhir brought in spinners, Brad Hogg, Piyush Chawla and Kuldeep Yadav to curtail the run flow. The ploy worked perfectly as Hogg removed Parthiv Patel in the last over of the powerplay running out the left-hander after he jumped out of the crease for a non-existent run.
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.
With all the experiments happening at the other end, Rohit Sharma slowly went past yet another fifty at the Eden Gardens off 38 balls in the 14 over. With the team needing 66 off the last six, the skipper and Jos Buttler changed their gears and went after Hogg with the Englishman scoring a six and four off consecutive balls to finish the 17-run over.
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.Â
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
Mumbai Indians won the toss and elected to bowl after burning their fingers while batting first in their opening match. Gautam Gambhir and Robin Uthappa, who had a 69-run opening partnership in the first match against Delhi Daredevils, started cautiously with Tim Southee and Jasprit Bumrah keeping a tight leash on the scoring rate. With the runs hard to come by, Uthappa tried to take the aerial route to find runs and perished in his endeavour, mistiming an attempted pull off Mitchell McClenaghan to give Pollard an easy catch at the cover in the fourth over.
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
Harbhajan Singh ended Pandey’s innings in the 14th over, but it proved to be a blessing in disguise for the Kolkata team with Andre Russell using his sheer power to clear the boundaries in the final six overs. The right-hander swung and swung hard at every ball, with the ball ending up in the stands more often than not.
The skipper tried to follow his West Indian