New Delhi: The resurgence of defending champions Mumbai Indians continued as they outclassed Kolkata Knight Riders by a massive 102 runs margin at the Eden Gardens on Wednesday. After registering their fourth victory in the last five games, Mumbai jumped to fourth in the 2018 Indian Premier League standings with 10 points.
Mumbai bowled out KKR for 108 in 18.1 overs, after setting a mammoth 211-run target to push down their opponents to fifth in the leaderboard. Mumbai increased their winning-streak against KKR to eight as they fashioned their 18th win in 22 matches against their 'bunny'.
After Ishan Kishan (62 off 21 balls) powered Mumbai to 210/6, Pandya brothers - Krunal (2/12) and Hardik (2/16) led the impressive bowling attack to register their biggest win against KKR in eleven seasons.
KKR endured a terrible start to the massive run chase as they lost Sunil Narine in the second ball of the innings to Mitchell McClenaghan. Chris Lynn (21 off 15 balls) kept the scoring rate high by hitting a six and three fours, before a mix-up with Robin Uthappa on the last ball of the fourth over ended his stay in the middle.
The hosts slipped further when young spinner Mayank Markande struck in his first over to dismiss big-hitting Robin Uthappa (14) as KKR struggled to 51/3 after seven overs.
KKR kept losing wickets at regular intervals as the asking rate climbed rapidly with every over bowled.
Andre Russell (2) was the next to depart as he was caught by Markande at extra cover off Hardik. The situation became worse for the home side in the tenth over, as they lost in-form skipper Dinesh Karthik to another run out dismissal and Hardik topped it with the wicket of Nitish Rana (21) in the next delivery. The chase was in all sense over at the halfway mark as KKR reached 72/6.
Two balls later, Jasprit Bumrah scalped Rinku Singh for his first wicket of the day. After a lull of 3.2 overs, during which KKR scored 17 without losing any wicket, Ben Cutting dismissed Piyush Chawla (11) to hasten the hosts' downfall. Krunal Pandyathen completed the rout with the wickets of Tom Curran (18) and Kuldeep Yadav.
Earlier, Ishan smashed a 17-ball half-century, the joint second fastest of the season with Narine, as Mumbai overcame a slow start to post an imposing 210/6.
Ishan tore apart KKR bowling, especially Kuldeep Yadav who was clobbered for four consecutive sixes, en route to his 21-ball 62 (5x4, 6x6) as MI scripted a turnaround in the middle overs.
The momentum shifted in favour of MI in the 14th over that yielded 25 runs with Ishan making a mockery of chinaman Kuldeep's bowling. The bulk of Mumbai's runs -- 148 -- came from boundaries. MI scored 73 runs in five middle overs to reach 145/3 in 15 overs from being a modest 72/2 midway into their innings.
After Ishan, it was Cutting show as he hit the first three balls of the final over for a six each en route to his nine-ball 24 (1x4, 3x6) as MI finished on a high with 22 runs in the final over bowled by Piyush Chawla.
Kuldep retrurned most expensive with 43 runs from his three overs, followed by Chawla who took 3/48 but was at his expensive best.
But the picture looked different midway into MI's innings with Narine (1/27) giving KKR the initial edge after Karthik opted to chase.
Openers Suryakumar Yadav (36) and Evin Lewis (18) once again gave MI a flying start with the KKR pace trio of Andre Russell, Prasidh Krishna and Tom Curran leaking 24 runs in the first three overs.
As has been their ploy, Narine came inside the powerplay and cleverly deceived the batsmen with his guile to restrict the run flow with nine runs from his first two overs. Narine set up the stage for an ordinary-looking Chawla to give the breakthrough in the sixth over as the desperate Mumbai batsmen looked to break free against the leg-spinner who accounted for both the openers. Mumbai were 62/2 inside nine overs.
But then came Ishan who hit top gear, dealing with only fours and sixes in his whirlwhind half-century.
Brief Scores: Mumbai Indians 210/6 (Ishan Kishan 62; Piyush Chawla 3/48) beat Kolkata Knight Riders 108 all out in 18.1 overs (Chris Lynn 21; Krunal Pandya 2/12)
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