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KKR, even after break

Defending champions pick up from where they broke off last year, beat MI by 7 wickets.

Synopsis: These days, there are two distinct ways — or schools of thought — to build an innings in short-format cricket. The first, as put on display in the World Cup, is to wobble along at a mediocre pace for 70 per cent of the game, and then double the score in the last 30. Whereas, the traditional T20 approach is to keep the run-rate hurtling along at a break-neck speed. Rohit Sharma’s Mumbai Indians fatally followed the first route and lost. Gautam Gambhir forced the Kolkata Knight Riders to stick to tradition and won. A trillion dropped catches during the chase of course helped their cause. (Full Coverage| Fixtures)

Scorecard: KKR vs MI

Synopsis: These days, there are two distinct ways — or schools of thought — to build an innings in short-format cricket. The first, as put on display in the World Cup, is to wobble along at a mediocre pace for 70 per cent of the game, and then double the score in the last 30. Whereas, the traditional T20 approach is to keep the run-rate hurtling along at a break-neck speed. Rohit Sharma’s Mumbai Indians fatally followed the first route and lost. Gautam Gambhir forced the Kolkata Knight Riders to stick to tradition and won. A trillion dropped catches during the chase of course helped their cause.

School of thought 1

Until as recently as the last IPL season, a batting-first score of 80/3 in 14 overs in a T20 game (70 per cent complete) would’ve meant just one thing — the match was bound to end rather quickly in the chase. But back in 2014, cricket hadn’t yet been swept by its latest trend, that of a team scoring as many runs in the last 15 overs of a game as they did in the first 35 (70 per cent complete). For this to occur, though, three basic criterions must be met. One, the team needs a set batsman at one end. Two, the team needs wickets to spare and throw. Three, one of those spare wickets needs to be a power-hitter.

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Mumbai Indians checked all boxes with captain Rohit tottering along at a run-a-ball 46, being just three wickets down and Corey Anderson raring to cut loose. So rather expectedly, they took 80/3 to 168/3 over the next six overs, with both batsmen finishing with sparkling fifties against their name.

School of thought 2

Not one player in Kolkata Knight Riders’ top-five (the only ones who batted in this match) played at the 2015 World Cup. So none of them really cared much for the new rage of leaving the bulk of the scoring for the end. Each of them — Robin Uthappa, Gambhir, Manish Pandey, Suryakumar Yadav and Yusuf Pathan — cracked at least one six and each of them ensured that the onset asking rate of 8.45 runs per over never ever climbed over 10. At the halfway stage of 10 overs they had exactly half the score — 85. And by the end they had doubled that to 170.

Rohit Sharma

Festive offer

The Mumbai Indians skipper proved two facts during his knock today. The first being that he has spent plenty of time facing Umesh Yadav in the nets during India’s four-month long trip of Australia. The second being that the Mumbai batsman likes nothing more than a flat Eden Gardens wicket. On the same belter that he cracked his maiden Test ton (177 vs West Indies) and the tallest individual score in ODIs (264 vs Sri Lanka), Rohit got going on Wednesday by going after his mate from two weeks back in the 15th over.

Clearing his front-foot, he mistimed his first clunk over mid-on for four. Next ball, he flat-batted a pacey Umesh over covers for four more. But it was the next blast for maximum that helped Rohit and MI really break the chains. The ball was retrieved, only for it to be sliced with spunk yet again for yet another boundary.

Gautam Gambhir

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For a while, it looked like Gambhir couldn’t buy himself a run. Or a bat. Finding himself on zero at the end of the opening over, the KKR captain charged the first ball of the second, only for the bat to snap neatly in two. And who was this fearsome tearaway, this destroyer of rocks and willows? You guessed it, R Vinay Kumar, hurtling it in at 120 something kmph.

If Gambhir ever needed a reality-check on the rust his kit had gathered away from the international scene, that was probably it. So Gambhir did what Gambhir always does when in trouble — dig a trench and nurdle away. He squirted singles to third-man and fine-leg for his first 14 balls (where he forged 7 runs) and lurked in the shadows, hoping for some relief. Then MI brought on Pragyan Ojha and not long after, the KKR captain was raising his bat to the rafters.

Dropped catches

If the old adage of catches win matches still holds true, then MI have extinguished their quota of wins for the tournament by dropping more catches than they did dot balls. First wicketkeeper Aditya Tare put down Gambhir in the second over. Then Anderson put Uthappa down in the third, this time off his own bowling. Anderson was the culprit once again a few overs later, giving batsman Pandey a life and receiving the stink-eye from bowler Harbhajan Singh.

The off-spinner would later put down a caught-and-bowled chance. But this time it would hurt twice as much as the ricocheting ball went for four and brought up Gambhir’s fifty. There were no stink-eyes this time around.

Get latest updates on IPL 2024 from IPL Points Table to Teams, Schedule, Most Runs and Most Wickets along with live score updates for all matches. Also get Sports news and more cricket updates.

First uploaded on: 09-04-2015 at 01:47 IST
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