Kolkata Knight Riders 157 for 7 (Venkatesh 42, Rana 33, Chawla 2-28, Bumrah 2-39) beat Mumbai Indians 139 for 8 (Kishan 40, Tilak 32, Chakravarthy 2-17, Russell 2-34, Harshit 2-34) by 18 runs
After MI were set 158 overs in 16 overs, Chakravarthy and Narine started the strangle that saw MI score just 22 runs in the five overs after the powerplay for two wickets that mounted the pressure on the visitors.
The strangle from Narine and Chakravarthy
Rohit Sharma was struggling for runs and scored at under run a ball in the first six overs. So the onus of hitting was on Ishan Kishan who flat-batted his way to 37 off 17 in the powerplay (which was five overs for this game). He largely peppered the square boundaries, the highlight being a four with a reverse hit followed by a six with a pull at the end of the powerplay to take MI to 59.
But Narine was ready with his riposte in his next over and had Kishan hole out for 40. With the spin on from both ends that featured a lot of stump-to-stump bowling and 17 consecutive boundary-less balls, Rohit’s struggle ended on 19. Suryakumar Yadav and Tilak also hardly attacked the spinners and the equation soon became 77 required from 36.
Russell then got the ball. His scrambled seam snared Suryakumar and the slower ball removed David. In between, Chakravarthy had Hardik Pandya caught for 2 to add to MI’s woes.
The equations like 57 needed from 18 have become all the more achievable in this IPL, and Tilak kept MI’s flame burning when he took on Harshit Rana in the 14th over for 16 runs by dispatching his slower ones to the ropes. No. 8 Naman Dhir took inspiration from Tilak to smash Russell for a couple of sixes and a four for a 19-run over that brought MI back in the game. With 22 needed from six, Dhir and Tilak fell in the first three deliveries of the last over, which sealed MI’s fate.