Pune: Pat Cummins powerful 56 from just 15 balls powered Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) to a five wicket victory over Mumbai Indians (MI), who once looked in a complete control of the match, here at Maharashtra Cricket Association Stadium on Wednesday.
The other top-scorer of the team was Venkatesh Iyer, who scored a patient 50 from 41 balls.
Earlier, Veteran Kieron Pollard complemented Suryakumar Yadav's brisk half-century by amassing 23 runs in the last over to lift Mumbai Indians to 161 for four after Kolkata Knight Riders kept things tight for a major part of their innings.
After an 83-run fourth-wicket stand between Suryakumar Yadav (52) and Tilak Varma (38 not out), Pollard (22 not out) smashed the world's premier fast bowler Pat Cummins for three sixes to end MI's innings on a high.
Opting to bowl first on a fresh pitch with plenty of grass, KKR's opening bowlers used the conditions to perfection as pacer Umesh Yadav (1/25) and debutant Rasikh Salam (0/18) relied on back of length deliveries to trouble MI's opening duo of skipper Rohit Sharma and Ishan Kishan.
Umesh and Cummins (2/49) picked up early wickets to reduce MI to 55 for three. Umesh looked more threatening of the two as he consistently tested the high-profile MI opening batters with his probing length, producing a fantastic first over which yielded just one run. Salam tried to match his senior pro.
Umesh struck first blood in the third over with a back-of-length delivery to get Rohit for the fifth time in IPL, with the MI skipper failing to control a pull.
Then came another debutant Dewald Brevis (29), known as 'Baby AB' for his 360 degree shot-making abilities, and he tried to attack the KKR bowlers. He succeeded in his endeavour for a brief period, hitting two fours and as many sixes, but fell to Varun Chakravarthy (1/32). All this while, MI's man-in-form Ishan Kishan (14 off 21) was a quiet spectator at the other end.
Unlike his last two innings, Kishan seemed to be struggling from the onset and a poor start didn't help his cause either. Kishan's struggle came to an end in the 11th over when he miscued a pull off Cummins to KKR skipper Shreyas Iyer. Varma got a reprieve in the 13th over when Ajinkya Rahane spooned him after a confusion with Billings. Yadav struck a four and a huge six in the final two deliveries of the same over to give MI's innings some momentum.
Varma grabbed the missed chance with both hand and scooped Cummins over fine leg for a maximum and then followed it with a slash over mid-wicket for a boundary off Chakravarthy.
Yadav, on the other hand, looked in ominous form after returning from injury, dealing mostly in fours and sixes to notch up his fifty in 34 balls.
