Kolkata Knight Riders Fell Into A Tangle of MI Traps

The first over after batting power play eclipsed the KKR’s dug out as the skipper Gautam Gambhir made his walk back to pavilion. The long run of hunt for scoring with momentum had been put to rest with the bare hands of Karan Sharma. Gambhir’s take on the leg spinner and risked slog swept on a tossed up delivery concluded with the realisation that the power he delivered was not complementing the trajectory he wanted on the ball. On the other end, hardly breaking a sweat, Hardik Pandya approached the ball at deep mid-wicket which led the punch drunk KKR side dipping down to their hurtful concussion.

The KKR dug out, especially the batsmen might had been cursing the grief stricken match, considering how straightforward it appeared for Mumbai Indians to lure them into traps.?Such was the wretched evening for KKR, that if they had marched into a spaced-out minefield, they would have still managed to step on danger each time.

The weather condition in Bangalore and the tackiness in Chinnaswamy surface explicitly defined the victory at the toss was analogous for getting the half job done. KKR has been the major spectator of such a show as prior to the battle against Mumbai Indians, they have made the Sunrisers’ fall into the same pit hence they were quite a step ahead before the match as relating to the dos and don’ts.

Chris Lynn:

As the match began, Rohit Sharma sensed the necessity to bin his field placement a bit wide, deep third man in favor of a long on for Chris Lynn. Not only that, the planned approach for Lynn was to leave him starving for room to play his shots in the arc and Mitchel Johnson and Jasprit Bumrah were following the same with their accurate pace and line length. Later on Bumrah?reaped the reward as Lynn holed out to long on in just the second over.

Sunil Narine:

Sunil Narine on the other end seemed helpless as his co-protagonist in the RCB massacre from nearly two weeks ago, walked off bowing his head down with dejection but his still ensuing benchmark in this IPL of joint fastest half century gave him something to live up to. After a long hunt of throwing hands he too was sent back to pavilion. Having his heart in right place he struggled catching his mind up in requisite tone.

The nonchalant flick off Lasith Malinga in the fourth over is the last boundary he played for KKR but after the commencement of Karn Sharma’s over, who played in place of seasoned Harbhajan Singh, Narine got totally tangled as the leg spinner?denied the left-hander any space to hit with the turn and clear the square leg fence. Narine tried hard to dispatch the balls fired on his pad but eventually failed at every endeavours. Lastly his try reached its end meet with a flight offered by Karn Sharma in which Narine urged the delivery to sail over the mid wicket fence resulted being foxed by leg spinner and got stamped.

Robin Uthappa:

Robin Uthappa’s endeavour to shockingly launching his quick lucrative cameo to drag KKR out from the adverse situation this time was severed by a Bumrah bolt at 144kmph. Uthappa’s attempted flick of the pulled back delivery of Bumrah ended with a LBW shout in favour of MI. With this dismissal of Uthappa, Gambhir led side KKR bulged into the lowest Power play total of his side in this edition of IPL (25 for 3).

Cusp of Gambhir’s innings:

Post power play Gambhir exit expanded a sudden stillness at Chinnaswamy. The accolades of KKR leaning crowd dropped dead as the captain’s dug out return airs the looming sense of the end of another IPL campaign for KKR. The clueless Colin De Grandhomme consumed another blow for KKR as his nonactive response to a googly thrown by Karan worsened the matter of KKR’s survival.

Short cameo by Ishank Jaggi and Suryakumar Yadav:

The laudable stand by Ishank Jaggi and Suryakumar Yadav – worth 56 runs off 47 balls – was brought to a wrenching halt when both Karn and Bumrah returned for their final spells. They weren’t just content with ripping the heart out of KKR early on, they wanted to snap the the latter’s spine as well, just in case.

Piyush Chawla’s show of resuscitation:

Later on?Piyush Chawla tried to resuscitate it with early wickets, but the gaping holes left behind by erring batsmen were too large to fill. Almost as if to make up for the ungodly 2 am finish on Wednesday, the penultimate clash of the season, on Friday, was wrapped up just a couple of minutes past 11.

“T20 is all about momentum. We started well in the first six overs, and that’s how we were in the game and won it.” Karn crisply summarised after MI secured a place in the final.?”Hopefully the batters can set the game up for the bowlers today,” was Gambhir’s plea going into the fixture. They didn’t even come close.