Match Review

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Chris Lynn is considered a walking wicket against spin, but today, the Aussie walked out to bat with a point to prove. In his 50-ball 75, Lynn struck six fours and four humongous sixes and remarkably, seven of those boundaries came against spin. It was a masterclass on how to play spin bowling from a guy who, erm, supposedly doesn’t know how to play spin. One of the more unique highs we’ve witnessed in this SRL. 

Chasing 204 meant that the KKR batsmen needed to show intent up front, but bizarrely and flabbergastingly, they ended up hitting just FIVE boundaries in the first TEN overs. The duo of Narine and Rana scored a total of just 24 runs in 34 balls and effectively, with their knocks, handed the game on a platter to Mumbai. The first half of KKR’s innings was a real bummer, indeed.

It became increasingly evident that KKR lost the plot towards the latter half of Mumbai’s innings. The onslaught at the end by Pandya and Lynn shook the KKR camp and what should have been a 160-170 total instead ended up being 203. The carnage towards the latter half of Mumbai’s innings was a psychological blow that Kolkata never recovered from. 

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Guilty of often throwing away wickets at the top, de Kock and Rohit Sharma, enabled by some positive batting, got Mumbai off to a fine start, taking them to 25 inside the first three overs. A similar sight followed soon after, as de Kock perished on the final ball of the third over, but that did not stop Mumbai today as they kept the foot on the pedal to continuously punish the KKR bowlers. Rohit, who was the aggressor in the opening partnership, combined with Chris Lynn to ensure that MI touched 59/1 at the end of their powerplay. 

KKR were on the backfoot even before the innings began, for the simple fact that Mumbai had all the momentum heading into the second innings, and it showed. After losing Shubman Gill in just the second over, both Narine and Rana failed to get a move on and two overs later, the southpaw from Delhi perished for 10. A brief onslaught from Morgan took KKR’s score to 36/2 at the end of the powerplay, but by then, the required run rate had already climbed up to 12.  

In contrast to the powerplay overs, Mumbai applied the brakes in the first four overs of the middle-over phase, scoring just 20 runs in total, and the dismissal of Rohit Sharma further added to their woes. The wicket of Rohit was expected to considerably turn the tide in favour of KKR, but unfortunately for the Knight Riders, today, Chris Lynn chose to break the norm of him being a ‘bad’ player of spin. Together with Suryakumar Yadav, Lynn dismantled the trio of Kuldeep, Narine and Lad and helped MI score 49 runs between overs 11 and 14. Eventually, MI lost Yadav in the 15th over, but with the score 131/3, they had batted themselves into a strong position heading into the final five.

From the beginning of the middle-over phase, it was as clear as daylight that Kolkata needed a miracle to get back into the game but as the script had it, that just did not transpire. Nathan Coulter-Nile, Rahul Chahar and Krunal Pandya choked the Knight Riders in the middle and between overs 6-10, DK’s men added just 23 runs. In fact, the game was well out of hand at the halfway stage, with the required run rate having jumped to 14.5. An uplifting Morgan-DK partnership ensured KKR stayed ‘alive’, but in reality, it was nothing but runs which were of no threat to Mumbai. KKR eventually ended up scoring 76 runs in the middle overs. 

KKR saw the back of Kieron Pollard on just the third ball at the death, but unfortunately for them, it did not arrest the flow or run nor did it stall Mumbai’s momentum. Instead, it turned out to be the triggering point for both Lynn and Hardik Pandya to go berserk. Together, Lynn and Pandya dismantled the erratic KKR bowlers to collect a staggering 64 runs off the last 4 overs to propel Mumbai’s score to 203. Cummins and Prasidh, both of whom had started off decently up front, ended up with combined figures of 8-0-85-1; the phase was KKR’s worst nightmare come true. 

Mumbai had virtually sealed victory with their performance in the first 15 overs and all they had to do was ensure they held their discipline to make the margin of victory a big one. Their performance was not ‘quite’ satisfactory, for they ended up leaking 57 runs at the death, but that mattered for little as at the end, Mumbai ended up registering a fine 34-run victory.  DK and Morgan did entertain towards the end, though.

Like most high-scoring, one-sided encounters, this match, too, followed the same old norm - the chasing team faltering after allowing the team batting first to put an above-par total in the first innings. In the form of cameos from DK, Morgan, Suryakumar Yadav, Pandya, and Lynn, the game did have entertaining snippets, but the trajectory of the match was way too predictable for it to be deemed an ‘entertaining’ encounter.