The Shreyas Iyer-led Kolkata Knight Riders managed to register a rare double whammy over their bogey team- the Mumbai Indians- in Monday night’s IPL game. The result keeps the Knight Riders alive in contention for an outside playoffs spot, while Mumbai slipped to 9 defeats- their most in any season.
It was the Mumbai bowling unit’s inability to notch up wickets in the powerplay that derailed their momentum this time around. While MI did make a fabulous comeback late in the game- thanks to Jasprit Bumrah’s record-breaking spell of 5/10- overall, it was a very meek performance from the men in blue and gold.
Ishan Kishan loses sight of the ball while keeping
In fact, at one point during the match, the KKR batsmen managed to pick up a cheeky single while MI ‘keeper Ishan Kishan kept cluelessly searching for the ball. During the 9th over of Kolkata’s innings, Nitish Rana tried to reverse sweep Kumar Kartikeya for a boundary.
But Rana couldn’t quite get the connection on the ball, and he just managed to bottom-edge the ball right past Ishan Kishan’s legs. Kishan, however, couldn’t spot the ball on time and was left cluelessly looking around as the ball rolled away to Bumrah at short square leg.
Kartikeya himself was seen animatedly yelling at Kishan to collect the ball, and the latter could only respond with a sheepish smile. Rana and Ajinkya Rahane had no business going for that run, but the situation panned out conveniently for them and they managed to score an extra run. Even Pommie Mbangwa, who was commentating at the time, was left amused by the incident. Here’s the video:
Match Summary
Aside from that one moment of lapse in concentration, Kishan looked well in control of his game and top-scored for MI with a 43-ball 51. Unfortunately for him, none of the other Mumbai batters could provide him adequate support, which derailed their momentum in the chase. Pat Cummins and Andre Russell picked up 5-wickets between them to help KKR register a rare two-in-one-season win over MI.
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Brief scores: Kolkata 165/9 (Venkatesh 43, Nitish 43, Cummins 3/22) beat Mumbai 113 (Kishan 51, Pollard 15, Bumrah 5/10) by 52 runs.
