Cricket Blog

A powerful batting display from Rohit Sharma (109) helped Mumbai Indians to have decent win against Kolkata Knight Riders.

Chasing 182, Kolkata Knight Riders fought back very well with Jacques Kallis (79) and Yusuf Pathan unbeaten (40) tried hard to reach the target, but unfortunately they failed.

Kolkata got an early shock as skipper Gautham Gambhir (0) and Manvinder Bisla (1) got dismissed early. But Jacques Kallis took the charge along with Manoj Tiwary by taking the score ahead. The South African batsmen looked good with smashing some great shots until he was dismissed by Dwayne Smith.

Knight Riders, however, were in deep pressure with loosing wickets and increasing run-rate.

Mumbai Indians in the first inning had a great batting display with Rohit Sharma entertaining pack Eden Garden, Kolkata. While, Hershelle Gibbs (66) unbeaten also played some good shots. The duo shared 167 run partnerships.

Sachin Tendulkar (2) again failed to put some score on his kit. But Rohit Sharma and Gibbs were in no mood of going slow with Knight Riders. Brett Lee and Jacques Kallis were two bowlers to whom both the batsmen took advantage of.

The host tried their best to break the partnership but failed to do that and eventually had to chase a big total.

Rohit Sharma was awarded with Man of the Match. Rohit Sharma on his maiden century said, “To be honest, there was no game-plan. I just wanted to go there and spend some time. The idea was to stay there and bat throughout the 20 overs. We were batting first so we wanted to put up a decent score. We knew that the wicket will be slow. 160-170 was our target in mind but we had wickets in hand and could post 180+. Partnerships are always crucial, in any format of the game. We always speak about getting a 100 run partnership in the meetings and we managed to do that. Gibbs and I wanted to bat the first 15 overs and then take it from there.”

Squad:

Kolkata Knight Riders: Gautam Gambhir (c), Manvinder Bisla (wk), Jacques Kallis, Manoj Tiwary, Shakib Al Hasan, Yusuf Pathan, Debabrata Das, Laxmi Shukla, Rajat Bhatia, Brett Lee, Sunil Narine

Mumbai Indians: Sachin Tendulkar, Herschelle Gibbs, Rohit Sharma, Dinesh Karthik (wk), Ambati Rayudu, Dwayne Smith, Kieron Pollard, Harbhajan Singh (c), Lasith Malinga, Pragyan Ojha, Munaf Patel