Kolkata Knight Riders kept their slim hopes of reaching the IPL 2022 playoffs alive with a 52-run win over Mumbai Indians at the DY Patil Stadium on Monday. After Jasprit Bumrah’s sensational 5/10, including 18 dot balls, was instrumental in restricting Kolkata to 165/9 in 20 overs, Mumbai were never in the reckoning to chase the total, crashing to 113 all out in 17.3 overs.
Barring Ishan Kishan’s 51, none of the Mumbai batters in a line-up minus Suryakumar Yadav could get the big runs as Pat Cummins and Andre Russell shared five wickets between themselves, using the short balls to good effect. Kolkata drew first blood in the opening over when Sheldon Jackson flew to his right and pouched a catch on his right glove of Rohit Sharma off Tim Southee.
Given not out by the on-field umpire, Kolkata went for review and ultra-edge showed multiple spikes when the ball was passing before and after hitting the bat. But the third umpire was convinced that a middle spike showed ball’s connection with the bat, enough to overturn the on-field decision, leaving Sharma furious while walking off the field.
Tilak Varma, promoted to three in the absence of Suryakumar Yadav, couldn’t make much use of the opportunity and nicked a short ball outside off to first slip off Russell. Ramandeep Singh never looked to be settled at the crease before miscuing a pull to backward point off Russell.
Amidst all this, Kishan slammed five fours against pace as well as spin and found support from Tim David, who hit the ground running with a hat-trick of fours through square leg, mid-on, and mid-wicket off Russell. But Varun Chakravarthy separated the duo, forcing David to miscue a slog-sweep to long-on.
Kishan continued to hang on at the crease, pulling Sunil Narine fiercely over deep mid-wicket, and took a single to bring his 12th IPL fifty in 41 balls. But in the very next over, Kishan couldn’t get on to the top of a bouncer from Cummins, top-edging a pull to deep backward square leg.
That started Mumbai’s slide as Cummins bounced out Daniel Sams in the same fashion and ended the over with Murugan Ashwin ramping straight to third man. Kolkata took out the last three wickets, including an off-colour Kieron Pollard, for just one run to keep their playoffs hopes alive.
Brief scores: Kolkata Knight Riders 165/9 in 20 overs (Venkatesh Iyer 43, Nitish Rana 43, Jasprit Bumrah 5/10, Kumar Kartikeya Singh 2/32) beat Mumbai Indians 113 all out in 17.3 overs (Ishan Kishan 51, Kieron Pollard 15; Pat Cummins 3/22, Andre Russell 2/22) by 52 runs.
(Inputs from IANS)