5. Yusuf’s hard-hitting
Yusuf Pathan showed his fireworks on a rain-hit evening at the Eden Gardens, blasting an unbeaten 37 runs off only 18 balls, to power the Kolkata Knight Riders to a convincing 8 wicket win against Rising Pune Supergiants.
KKR were set a run target from 9 overs via the Duckworth-Lewis method on a pitch offering a lot of assistance to the spinners.
Spinner Ravichandran Ashwin claimed both the KKR openers in the first over of the innings, dismissing Robin Uthappa and Gautam Gambhir.
But Yusuf’s counter-attack proved too much for the Pune bowlers. His blazing knock was laced with 3 sixes and 4 boundaries as KKR chased down the target with four overs remaining.
His knock ensured that Mahendra Singh Dhoni will not be a part of the play-offs for the first time in IPL history. Dhoni led his previous (now banned for two years) team, the Chennai Superkings into the play-offs every IPL season.
It was one of Dhoni’s worst knocks in T20 cricket. The Supergiants skipper struggled, scoring 8 from 22 balls.