The 5th match played between Kolkata Knight Riders and Mumbai Indians played in Abu Dabhi’s Sheikh Zayed Stadium ended with Mumbai Indians wining the match by 49 runs.
This is Mumbai Indians’s first win in this season. Mumbai Indians skipper Rohit Sharma was awarded the man of the match for his batting performance. He scored 80 runs of 54 balls scoring 6 maximums. He was well supported by middle order batsman Suryakumar yadav who scored 47 runs taking the pressure off Rohit. KKR’s bowling was not unto the mark as none of their bowlers seemed to trouble the MI batsmen. Their most expensive buy this IPL, Pat Cummins had a day to forget as he conceded 49 runs in 3 overs. The only standout bowlers were Sunil Narine and young speedster Shivam Mavi who scalped 1 and 2 wickets respectively.
On the brisk of a strong batting display, MI managed to post a total of 195 against Kolkata Knight Riders.
Dinesh Karthik led Kolkata Knight Riders batting second started the game slowly and had a steady start. The KKR Skipper himself scored 30 runs in 23 balls followed by Nitish Rana who scored a decent 24. High expectations from Andre Russell and Eion Morgan all resulted in disappointment as they failed big time with the bat. The duo walked out to bat with more than 100 required of the last 6 overs which was too much to ask for.
Jasprit Bumrah was having an exceptional spell till his 3rd over where his figures read 3-0-5-2. However he did not end the way he would have liked to as speedster Pat Cummins smashed him for 4 sixes in his final over scoring 27 runs and taking his tally to 4-0-32-2. West Indian all rounder Kieron Pollard managed to scalp his first wicket when he got Nitish Rana out thanks to a superb take by Hardik Pandya.
With this win, Mumbai Indians are well placed at the top of the table with a huge net run rate in their favour while KKR started their campaign in the worst manner possible.
The next match will see Virat Kohli’s Royal Challengers Bangalore taking on KL Rahul led Kings XI Punjab.
