Match Review

You can check out the scorecard and Match Tracker here.

152 is the kind of target you can chase with ease if your top-order fires, but any chances of that happening was instantly eliminated by Prasidh Krishna. The right-hander’s devastating second over saw him claim the wickets of both Rohit and de Kock in back-to-back deliveries and that turned out to be a dagger in Mumbai’s heart. 

Highs and Lows

Appalling is the word to describe Mumbai’s batting performance today and the scorecard serves as a testament to the same. Rahul Chahar, who scored 19 runs after the game was well and truly beyond Mumbai’s reach, was the highest run-getter for Mumbai in the game six of the Blues’ batsmen perished for single-digit scores. A low point not only in this game but in Mumbai’s SRL campaign.

Rating Charts

KKR would have hoped for a solid start after being inserted into bat, but they were taken aback by Mumbai’s accuracy, which saw the Knight Riders lose 3 wickets inside the first six overs. In all fairness, at one point, it looked like they would finish with 20 for something at the end of the sixth over, but Morgan’s bizarre cameo catapulted their score to 37/3 off 6 overs - which is still a pretty average result. 

If KKR’s powerplay display was average, then Mumbai’s was terrible. All the Blues needed to do was keep wickets in hand and unleash towards the end, given they were chasing just 152, but each of their top three batters threw their wicket away to leave their side in a precarious position. Indeed, Prasidh’s new-ball spell was otherworldly, but given the experience MI had in their ranks, 25/3 at the end of the powerplay is an unacceptable outcome.

Teams in this SRL, thanks to almost always losing wickets upfront, have gotten used to perfecting the rescue job in the middle, but KKR, today, went one step further and counterpunched to bounce back and assert their authority in the match. In the nine-over period between overs 7 and 15, the Knight Riders accumulated 80 runs and their charge was led by skipper DK, who single-handedly dragged them out of the rut. Pandya junior’s 13-run over in the 13th over proved to be quite expensive for Mumbai, in this phase. 

MI’s middle-over performance was exactly opposite of what KKR managed. There was no rescue job, there was no intent and they ended up surrendering and losing the game in this phase. After being ravaged by pace in the powerplay, the Blues lost five wickets to the mystery spinning duo of Kuldeep and Narine in the middle overs to virtually hand victory to KKR. Not a single batsman attempted to put a fight and all in all, it was a miserable performance.

After the startling middle-phase, KKR were primed to blast their way to a 165-plus score but instead, what followed was death bowling of the highest quality from Mumbai's bowling unit. Together, the MI bowlers ended up conceding just 34 runs at the death and such was their discipline and accuracy that even a well-set DK could not really tee off towards the end. In fact, Mumbai conceded just 17 runs in a four-over phase between overs 16 to 19. 

With MI teetering at 82/8 at the start of the death overs, this phase of their innings was just mere formality. They stood no chance of winning the game with the required run rate climbing to 14 an over and what eventually unfolded was Prasidh and Narine getting rid of both Chahar and Kulkarni, who scored 19 and 14 respectively. The KKR bowlers finished the game with two overs to spare.

A game where ball dominates bat could go ugly - in terms of viewing experience - when it isn’t close and that is exactly what happened today. It had legs to be a close encounter, but Mumbai’s hideous display with the bat instead made it one of the more dull matches of this tournament.