Kolkata: Mumbai Indians finally came into party as they defeated Kolkata Knight Riders by five wickets at Eden Gardens on Wednesday. It was some brilliant batting from Dwayne Smith who scored 62 runs in just 45 balls which was very well complimented with contributions of Rohit Sharma (34) and Keiron Pollard (33) which helped Mumbai win after two consecutive losses.
Earlier it was the trio of Pragyan Ojha, Lasith Malinga and Mitchell Johnson who bowled brilliantly to restrict KKR to 159 as they picked up two wickets each. Smith was adjudged man-of-the-match for his brilliant performance.
Mumbai Indians were off to a decent start as Dwayne Smith started hitting the ball over the ropes and gave them that ignition that was very much needed to fuel the innings. But disappointment came in for MI fans, when the 29 run-stand was broken by Sunil Narine when he got Sachin Tendulkar out with his regular off-spinner. Tendulkar departed after scoring just two runs. Dinesh Karthik joined Smith, who meanwhile decided to go after the bowlers , especially Sachithra Senanayake, and came out with some huge sixes.
Meanwhile, Sachithra picked up the wicket of Karthik who was adjudged leg before wicket while the ball was carrying too much of bounce with it. Unlucky Karthik departed after contributing just seven runs. Rohit Sharma came into bat and started milking those singles and was trying to get settled to the pace of the wicket. But very soon, MI got another blow as Smith departed after scoring 62 runs which were studded with five sixes and three fours and it was Narine who gave them the much needed breakthrough.
Keiron Pollard and Rohit Sharma batted sensibly to get their team close to the victory as they put up a much needed partnership of 50 runs. Sharma departed after scoring 34 off 28 balls and his wicket was taken by Narine who was bowling his final ball of his spell. Pollard mistimed the ball from Bhatia in the first ball of 19th over and got out after scoring 33 off 24 balls. But it was the gripping six from Harbhajan which brought Mumbai Indians back in the match and they won it by five wickets with one ball remaining.
Earlier, KKR who started off brilliantly when Yusuf Pathan and Gautam Gambhir hit 26 runs off the first over of the match which was bowled by Harbhajan Singh. But Mitchell Johnson got the wicket of Yusuf in his very first over which brought Jacque Kallis on to the crease. Gambhir and Kallis kept the momentum going and they reached 61 runs in six overs. Ojha was the bowler who broke the partnership of 41 runs by getting Gambhir out. Ojha kept the good work going as he dismissed Kallis in his final over and brought MI back into the hunt with his brilliant figures of 2/21.
Eoin Morgan and Manoj Tiwary had a brilliant partnership of 54 runs to get KKR to a good score. Both were playing the shots quite beautifully and were trying to get atleast one boundary every over. Johnson took the big wicket of Morgan in his final ball of the match. Morgan scored 31 runs off 25 balls and was soon followed by Manoj Tiwary and Debabrata Das who were bowled by Malinga in the 20th over of the innings. KKR scored a decent total of 159.
By ISN