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Mumbai Indians, out of the Playoffs race after last week’s loss to Royal Challengers Bengaluru, slumped to their ninth defeat on Wednesday, going down to Kolkata Knight Riders at the Eden Gardens. The four-wicket win in the low-scoring match kept KKR’s slender hopes of making the cut alive, having secured 13 points from as many games. MI managed 147-8 on a tricky track, thanks to some lusty hitting from No. 8 Corbin Bosch. KKR made heavy weather of the chase before getting home in the 19th over.
“If you look at the surface and the way we batted, we struggled to construct a partnership. We were some 20-25 runs short,” said MI’s bowling coach Paras Mhambrey. “They bowled well, but when you lose four wickets in the Powerplay, it’s always going to be difficult to come back. We still should have managed 160; it would have been really competitive,” he added. MI were 46-4 at that stage.
Suryakumar Yadav is clean bowled by KKR’s Saurabh Dubey at Eden Gardens on Wednesday. Pic/IPL
It was a tricky track, the sort that frowns upon free-flowing stroke-making. Having lost a crucial toss, it was evident that MI didn’t quite know what would be a good total on that surface as several batsmen fell attempting big shots. “It wasn’t an easy wicket, not a normal Eden Gardens wicket. It had a spongy bounce and later was a little up and down. That made stroke-making a little difficult; you would want to have some dot balls,” Mhambrey pointed out.
KKR made the same mistake, going too hard and losing wickets before Manish Pandey and Rovman Powell steadied the ship. Pandey, coming in early after Angkrish Raghuvanshi suffered a ‘concussion’ when he and Varun Chakravarthy collided while attempting a catch, scored 45 off 33 balls, while the Jamaican struck 40 off 30 balls. Chakravarthy played his second match with a cracked left toe.
Tilak Varma walks back after being dismissed for just 20 off 32 balls vs KKR. Pic/PTI
KKR’s assistant coach Shane Watson said Raghuvanshi had “some neck pain, a bit of dizziness and a bit of headache within a couple of overs of that collision.”
Nine
No. of scores below 25 by Suryakumar Yadav in 12 matches in the ongoing IPL, as compared to zero in 16 games last year
Four
No. of wickets MI lost in the Powerplay on Wednesday — the most for them in this phase
62.50
Tilak Varma’s strike-rate against KKR on Wednesday (20 off 32 balls) — the lowest ever by an MI better in the IPL after facing a minimum of 30 balls
147-8
No. of runs scored by MI on Wednesday — the lowest total at Eden Gardens this season
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