Abu Dhabi: A clinical bowling display by the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) unit saw Mumbai Indians (MI) scoring a moderate yet challenging 155 runs at the loss of six wickets on Thursday at the Sheikh Zayed Stadium here in the Indian Premier League (IPL) match.
Despite a staggering start provided by skipper Rohit Sharma (33) and Quinton de Kock (55), MI could not accelerate much as the other batters were faced with some excellent bowling by Prasidh Krishna, Sunil Narine, Varun Chakravarthy, and Lockie Ferguson.
KKR might be in for a victory here but for that to happen, the side will have to cope up with swing of Jasprit Bumrah and Trent Boult.
Sharma got off the innings in scintillating fashion, caressing a Nitish Rana delivery onto the mid-off boundary. The skipper, who was in sublime touch in the Tests in England, had not played the opening game against CSK.
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Star all-rounder Hardik Pandya did not start once again, raising questions about his fitness.
Rohit took the attack to mystery spinner Varun Charkravarthy with two consecutive fours in opening two deliveries of the fourth over.
De Kock was not to be left behind as he matched his skipper stroke for stroke, pulling a Lockie Ferguson delivery over the fence for the first maximum of the match.
Introduced into the attack in the sixth over, Prasidh Krishna was taken to task by de Kock, hitting the medium pacer twice over the fence to pick up 16 runs from his first over as MI cantered to 56 for no loss.
De Kock seemed unstoppable as he welcomed Andre Russell with consecutive fours. Morgan bowled out trump card Chakravarthy by the 11th over (4-0-22-0) with MI not losing a wicket against him.
With de Kock going hammer and tongs, Rohit played the second fiddle and scored 33 runs off 30 balls before Sunil Narine got his man for the ninth time in T20s, holing out to Shubman Gill at the boundary.
Suryakumar Yadav (5) was done in by a fine outswinger from Krishna as the batsman edged one to Dinesh Karthik behind the stumps in the 13th over.
De Kock then notched up his fifty with a single of Ferguson in the 14th over.
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KKR pulled things back between 10-15 overs, conceding only 26 runs and picked up two wickets.
Pollard, as he often does, came up with much-needed big hits in the last five overs, including a flat batted six over mid-wicket in Krishna's 18-run over.
Ferguson bowled a brilliant last over for KKR, removing the dangerous duo of Pollard and Krunal Pandya (12) at the cost of only six runs.
MI collected 49 runs from the last five overs and 75 in the last 10.
(With inputs from PTI)
