Mumbai Indians vs Kolkata Knight Riders (Match 22) – Highlights

Venkatesh Iyer has broken the century drought for Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) after 14 years in the Indian Premier League (IPL). He has scored his first century in his career. However, the Mumbai Indians (MI) batsmen did not let his innings be memorable.

On Sunday (April 16), chasing the target of 186 runs given by Knight Riders, MI won by 5 wickets with 14 balls in hand.

Wicketkeeper-batsman Ishan Kishan and opener Rohit Sharma brought up a great start for MI coming down to chase the target. The two together picked up 65 runs in 4.5 overs. Rohit left the field with 2 fours and 1 six, he scored 20 runs off 13 balls. Kishan picked up his fifty before leaving the field. He played a devastating inning of 58 runs with 5 fours and 5 sixes in 25 balls.  

MI’s run machine Tilak Varma scored 30 runs off 25 balls before being bowled by Suyash Sharma for the team’s 147 runs. After passing a run drought, Suryakumar Yadav shined with the bat yesterday. He got out with 43 runs off 25 balls to take the team to the port of victory. His innings were decorated with 4 fours and 3 sixes. In the end, Tim David left the field after confirming the team’s victory with unbeaten innings of 23 runs from 13 balls.

Suyash Sharma picked up 2 wickets at the cost of 27 runs for the Knight Riders. Besides, Shardul Thakur, Varun Chakaravarthy, and Lockie Ferguson took 1 wicket each.

After losing the toss and being propelled to bat first, the Knight Riders got a challenging score of 185 runs in the scheduled 20 overs courtesy of Venkatesh’s century. KKR captain Nitish Rana said after seeing the wicket at the Wankhede Stadium that they intended to set a target of 180 runs at least in front of MI.

Keeping the needs of the captain in mind, Venkatesh started aggressively with the bat from the beginning. But the rest of the team’s batters could not be his worthy partner. Two openers N Jagadeesan (0) and Rahmanullah Gurbaz (8) failed but Venkatesh maintained the quality of the top order that day. He also handled the failure of Nitish Rana (5) and Shardul Thakur (13) in the middle order by maintaining solitary dominance on the crease.

Venkatesh scored a century taking the team’s total to 151 runs in 16.4 overs of the innings. This is Venkatesh’s first century in his three-year IPL career. His previous highest innings were 83, against Gujarat Titans in the current season. Meanwhile, a Knight Riders batsman saw a personal century almost 14 years after Brendon McCullum.

However, Venkatesh did not get a chance to surpass McCullum’s innings of 158 that were played against Royal Challengers Bangalore in 2008. Iyer was dismissed for 104 runs in 17.2 overs. His innings were decorated with 9 sixes and 6 fours. In the end, Knight Riders collected a fighting score of 185 runs based on Rinku Singh’s 18 runs from 18 balls and Andre Russell’s 21 runs from 11 balls. 

Arjun Tendulkar, son of Sachin Tendulkar, and Duan Jansen, twin brother of South African pacer Marco Jansen, made their IPL debuts for MI on this day. Arjun, however, bowled just 2 overs and remained wicketless with 17 runs. Duan Jansen got 1 wicket conceding 53 runs in 4 overs.

Besides, Hrithik Shokeen took the maximum number of 2 wickets at the cost of 34 runs for MI. Moreover, Cameron Green, Piyush Chawla and Riley Meredith took one wicket each.

Meanwhile, Kolkata Knight Riders are in the 5th position in the points table with 4 points in 5 matches despite being defeated by MI. On the other hand, Mumbai Indians have moved up to eighth place after winning this match, they have 4 points in 4 matches.

Mumbai Indians vs Kolkata Knight Riders Scoreboard

Kolkata Knight Riders – 185/6 (20.0)

Mumbai Indians – 186/5 (17.4)

Result – Mumbai Indians won by 5 wickets

Player of the match – Venkatesh Iyer

Venkatesh Iyer