On Sunday evening, Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) suffered a defeat by 13-run against the hosts Mumbai Indians (MI) at Wankhede Stadium (Mumbai).
KKR captain Dinesh Karthik decided to field first after winning the toss. A good opening start helped the hosts to put 181/4 in 20 overs. In reply, KKR only managed to score 168/6 at the end of 20 overs.
Now, we will briefly talk about some important reasons for KKR’s defeat in this game.
Failed to take early wickets
Mumbai openers Suryakumar Yadav and Evin Lewis provided a great start as they put a brilliant 91-run partnership for the opening wicket. That crucial start helped the hosts to put a good total on the board despite KKR bowlers bowled very well in the second half.
While early wickets are very important in cricket, KKR bowlers failed to claim any wicket before the 10th over which set the solid base for the hosts.
Also read: Match 37 (MI vs KKR) – Hits and Flops
Openers failure
Chasing down a target like 182 runs in 20 overs, opening batsmen are always very important. However, KKR lost their opening batsmen early as Chris Lynn and Shubman Gill scored only 17 and 7 runs respectively.
In result, KKR failed to get a good start and that affected hugely despite next batsmen were able to control that innings well.
Set batsmen departed back-to-back
KKR had another huge setback after their set batsmen Robin Uthappa and Nitish Rana were dismissed in quick succession. After the early opening failure, Uthappa and Rana provided a superb 84-run partnership for the third wicket which brought them back into the game strongly.
However, their dismissals in quick succession again put the visitors back under the pressure. First, Uthappa was dismissed on 54 balls off 35 balls and then Rana went back to the pavilion in the next over after scoring 31 runs off 27 balls.
Also read: (MI vs KKR) – Turning Point of the Match
Dinesh Karthik didn’t get any support from the other late batsmen
Due to the set batsmen Robin Uthappa and Nitish Rana’s quick dismissals, KKR skipper Dinesh Karthik failed to get the important help in the last period. Though Karthik tried hard as he was not out on 36 runs off just 26 balls with 5 fours and only six, he didn’t get any support from other late batsmen.
Among the late batsmen, Andre Russell scored only 9 runs off 10 balls while Sunil Narine scored 5 runs off 4 balls.
