The Mumbai Indians (MI) hosted Kolkata night Riders (KKR) in the last league match of the ongoing season of the Indian Premier League (IPL) at the iconic Wankhede Stadium. After winning the toss, the MI skipper, Rohit Sharma asked the visitors to bat first and his decision turned out to be brilliant as Mumbai reached the playoffs at the top of the table with a 9-wicket win.
During the toss, the KKR skipper, Dinesh Karthik revealed that they have just one change in their squad as Prasidh Krishna replaced Piyush Chawla. On the other hand, MI made a couple of changes to their squad as Ishan Kishan and Mitchell McClenaghan came back in to replace Evin Lewis and Barinder Sran.
WATCH – Malinga Dismisses Karthik And Russell In The Same Over
Lynn along with Shubman Gill gave a decent start to the visitors as they added as many as 49 runs in the powerplay itself, but on the first ball of the 7th over Hardik Pandya dismissed Gill. In his next over, Hardik dismissed Lynn as well and after that KKR witnessed a decent dip in their scoring rate as from 57/2 after the 9th over, they were standing at 65/2 after the 12th over.
Malinga’s over
However, the real magic happened in the 13th over of Lasith Malinga as he dismissed Karthik and Andre Russell in a matter of three balls. More importantly, Russell was dismissed for a golden duck. After those dismissals, KKR never managed to come back in the game as Nitish Rana played some shots but it was sufficient as he was also perished in the 18th over of Malinga. Eventually, Kolkata reached a total of 133/7 in their quota of 20 overs.
WATCH – Dinesh Karthik Takes A Blinder To Dismiss Quinton de Kock
During the chase, the MI openers, Quinton de Kock and Rohit Sharma came out all guns blazing as in the fourth over the innings bowled by Russell, as they smashed 21 runs with the help of couples of fours and sixes. However, on the very first ball after the powerplay, De Kock lost his wicket owing to a brilliant catch by Karthik. That was the only wicket MI lost while chasing the target.
Along with Surya Kumar Yadav, the MI skipper added as many as 88 runs for the second wicket as they helped the host to chase the total comfortably with 9 wickets and 23 balls to spare. Meanwhile, Rohit scored a fifty as well.
Brief Score:
Mumbai Indians – 134/1 in 16.1 overs (R Sharma: 55*, S Yadav: 46*; P Krishna: 1/22 ) defeated Kolkata Knight Riders – 133/7 in 20 overs (C Lynn: 41, R Uthappa: 40; L Malinga: 3/35) by nine wickets
