Kolkata Knight Riders tumble against Mumbai Indians’ mammoth total, lose by 102 runs

The stage was set for the Knights to emerge victorious by chasing down 211 in front of co-owner and superstar Shah Rukh Khan who was present at the stands, but the batting unit fell down like a pack of cards and bowled out to 108 in 18.1 overs.

Reminding the batting collapse of Kolkata in Mumbai in 2008, when the Knights were bowled out to 67, Karthik’s men on Wednesday were reduced to 76/7 at some stage.

A batting collapse with an addition of couple of crucial run-outs forced the Knights to face an embarrassing defeat against Mumbai, who scored 210/6 in 20 overs.

Leaving no room for Kolkata to fight back in the match, Mumbai bowlers were right on top by picking explosive Sunil Narine (4) in the first over.

Mitchell McClenaghan, who opened the bowling for Mumbai, picked one wicket in the match conceding 24 runs in three overs.

After losing his partner, Chris Lynn showed some conviction by quickly scoring 21 from 15 balls, but a confusion with striker Robin Uthappa made him cost his wicket.

The pressure of a mammoth target of 210 slowly started creeping the hosts as they lost back to back wickets in the form of Uthappa (14), Andre Russell (2), Dinesh Karthik (5) and Nitish Rana (21), making the task for Kolkata near to impossible.

Hardik Pandya may had a poor performance with bat, but he compensated by picking two wickets for just 16 in three overs and a run out.

Probably the biggest contributor in Mumbai’s win was Ishan Kishan, who hammered a mesmerising knock of 62 facing just 21 balls.

Coming out to bat at a critical moment, when Mumbai was looking nervous at 62/2 in nine overs, Ishan took the match completely away from Kolkata by displaying a 21-ball 62 runs knock, which was composed of five fours and six sixes.

Ishan partnered his skipper Rohit Sharma to construct a 82-run stand for the third wicket.

Though Rohit (36 off 31) was looking tame throughout the innings, Ishan was on the top gear to smash four sixes in the 14th over to reach his 50 in just 17 deliveries.

Though KKR’s best bowler Narine (1/27 in four overs) was also picked out of the park by Ishan in the 15th over, it was the Windies spinner who picked the left-handed batter’s wicket.

After controlling the match in the first ten overs, the KKR bowlers gave away 22 runs in the next ten.

Piyush Chawla (3/48), who helped KKR to clinch the first two wickets of the match, finished the innings by conceding 22 runs in the 20th over.

After the loss, Kolkata slipped a place to fifth position in the points table. Mumbai, on the other hand, moved to the fourth position in the IPL standings.