Kolkata: Kolkata Knight Riders finally got the much needed victory as they defeated Kings XI Punjab quite comprehensively by six wickets with 10 balls to spare at Eden Gardens here on Friday.
Riding on a blistering 51 runs from Manvinder Bislacoupled with some knocks from Jacques Kallis (37) and Eoin Morgan (42) KKR chased down an impossible target quite easily. Kallis was adjudged man-of-the-match for his brilliant all-round performance as he also picked up couple of wickets for just 14 runs.
Kolkata Knight Riders had a poor start as they lost their two wickets in quick succession. It was Azhar Mahmood who gave them the blows by getting Gautam Gambhir and Yusuf Pathan out. But Jacques Kallis and Manvinder Bisla did some brilliant counter attack as they ran hard for quick singles and looked for boundaries whenever possible. This pushed KXIP to the back foot and gave KKR some sigh of relief.
Luck also favoured KKR as Kallis was lucky to be not given leg before off a Piyush Chawla's delivery which hit his pad in front of middle and leg stump. He grabbed the opportunity and started scoring some quick boundaries. However his brilliant run was stopped by Harmeet Singh who bowled outside off-stump to get an edge of his bat which went in to keeper’s gloves.
Eoin Morgan came into the centre and started playing his innovative shots to release some pressure and in just a matter of few balls he accelerated the innings brilliantly by getting those fours and sixes. Meanwhile, Bisla continued rotating the strike really well and allowed Morgan to do some damage. His strategy worked out really well and Morgan scored 42 runs off 26 balls in which he scored three fours and four sixes before getting out in the 18th over. Bisla scored the winning runs for KKR and handed over an easy victory by six wickets in just 18.2 overs.
Earlier in the match, Kings XI Punjab were off to a brilliant start as the opening pair of Mandeep Singh and Adam Gilchrist did exceedingly well to add 45 runs on the board in first six overs. But Kallis gave KKR a much needed breakthrough in Mandeep as he departed after scoring 25 runs off 20 balls. Rajat Bhatia gave KXIP a second blow when he picked up a big wicket of Gilchrist who was looking in brilliant touch. Gilly departed after scoring run-a-ball 27 which brought David Hussey in the centre to accompany Manan Vohra.
Vohra started taking on the bowlers and was getting those crucial boundaries but Punjab’s third wicket stand of 29 runs was broken by Lakshmipathy Balaji who bowled a slower one to Vohra who mis-hit to the fielder at deep cover. Vohra departed after scoring 31 runs off 21 balls.
After that Punjab’s innings turned out to be disaster as they lost three important wickets of David Hussey, David Miller and Azhar Mahmood in the span of just four overs. Some of the KXIP batsmen got a decent start but no one capitalized it well and that cost Punjab good 20-30 runs. But thanks to Gurkeerat Singh who played a great cameo of 28 runs off just 15 balls to lead his side to a decent total of 150 runs in 20 overs. Hussey scored 21 runs off 20 balls and score just one boundary.
By ISN