Defending Champions of Indian Premier League, Kolkata Knight Riders began their campaign with a comfortable 7 wickets win over Mumbai Indians.
Here the crucial moments that changed the games’ course. Here are the ‘Quick Flicks’ of the KKR vs MI match –
Morne Morkel’s spell:
Morkel, with a figures of 4-1-18-2 restricted Mumbai Indians’ top order and didn’t allow them to score runs in the powerplay. He shared the new ball with Umesh Yadav and got hit for a boundary of first ball by Finch but soon got rid of him in the same over. Morkel’s second over was an economical as it produced 7 runs. Morkel struck once again with a wicket maiden as Mumbai lost Ambati Rayudu for a duck. Morkel then finished his spell with another good last over which gave just 6 runs. His performance awarded him the man of the match.
Rohit-Corey’s record stand:
After early blows and a slow start Mumbai got, Rohit and Corey reconstructed their team innings with a responsible stand. The two started slowly but got into mood of hitting towards the end powering the score to 168 with an unbeaten stand of 130 for 4th wicket, the 2nd highest stand for 4th wicket in IPL.
Gautam Gambhir’s Drop Catch:
KKR’s captain Gambhir, who got off the mark in a nervous way soon edged a delivery off Vinay but keeper Tare couldn’t hold on to it. That catch effected Mumbai’s defence of the target later.
Gambhir-Pandey’s attack against spin:
Gautam Gambhir and Manish Pandey look cautious after early break through with run-rate just about 6. But Rohit’s introduction of spin into the attack allowed the set batsmen’s arms to swing. The phase between 7th-10th overs gave them 47 runs which made their chase easier.
17th over of the KKR’s innings:
When all looked easy for KKR, Malinga bowled a brilliant 16th over as the equation came down to 38 in last 4 overs. But Surya Kumar Yadav smashed couple of sixes in 17th over bowled by Bumrah, followed by Yusuf Pathan with a six as they yielded 20 runs from the over and made the equation quite easy.