Pune: Fantastic batting by Gautam Gambhir followed by some brilliant bowling by the quartet of Lakshmipathy Balaji, Iqbal Abdullah, Sunil Narine and Jacques Kallis helped Kolkata Knight Riders beat Pune Warriors India by 46 runs runs at Subrata Roy Sahara Stadium here on Thursday.
Chasing a target of 153 runs, Pune Warriors India had a terrible start as they lost the wicket of Aaron finch and Yuvraj Singh in the first four overs and were reduced to 23/2. Udit Birla tried his best but couldn’t make much impact as Abdullah dismissed him and Robin Uthappa in quick succession and Pune were down and out to 53/4 in 11 overs. Uthappa scored 31 runs off 35 balls before he got out.
Angelo Mathews kept the fight on but ran out of partners at the other end. Mitchell Marsh, Wayne Parnell and Mahesh Rawat departed after contributing five runs each whereas Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Parvez Rasool were dismissed by Balaji who sent them back to the dug out after they scored one run each. Balaji ended up picking three wickets whereas Kallis, Abdullah and Narine took two wickets each.
Earlier, it was Manvinder Bisla and Gautam Gambhir who took KKR to a flying start as they added 45 runs for the opening stand. Bisla was dismissed by Bhuvneshwar Kumar and was followed by Kallis who was undone by debutant Parvez Rasool. Eoin Morgan failed to impress once again as he was dismissed for run-a-ball 15 by Mitchell Marsh.
Mitchell Marsh gave another blow in his second over when he got Gambhir out who was looking well settled after his half-century. Yusuf Pathan didn’t stay long on the crease and was dismissed by Bhuvneshwar for just three runs. Ryan ten Doeschate played a cameo of 31 runs off just 21 balls and gave KKR a much needed momentum. He made sure that KKR reach the target of 150+ in their 20 overs. Manoj Tiwary and Rajat Bhatia contributed 15 runs and 13 runs respectively.
Bhuvneshwar ended up with the figures of 3/25 in four overs.
By ISN