On Thursday, Kolkata Knight Riders continued their victory ride in the IPL 2021 with their gunning down Mumbai Indians by 7 wickets. After winning the 34th match of the ongoing tournament, KKR is right now at the 4th position in the points table along with DC, CSK and RCB.
Riding on the aggressive batting from Venkatesh Iyer and Rahul Tripathy, Morgan’s team chased down the target of 156 quite comfortably within mere 15.1 overs. Throughout his knock, Iyer constantly kept the MI bowlers under pressure and ended his innings with an impressive 53 off 30 balls. Tripathy continued what Iyer started. He finished unbeaten on 74 off just 42 balls.
On the other hand, the defending champions once again failed to impress with both their batting and bowling performance. The KKR bowlers Lockie Ferguson, Prasidh Krishna and Sunil Narine restricted the MI batsmen to go beyond the total of 155.
Praising the performance of Iyer, KKR skipper Eion Morgan said after the match, “We were trying to fit Iyer into the XI with a lot of talented guys, and it’s fantastic with the manner he has scored runs. We never put a number on him, on how many games he will get. In the practice games, he has gone out to play this way. Baz (McCullum) backs him to the hilt. Just a second game for him but played with full confidence.”
He also thanked coach Brendon McCullam for his guidance. “Well, it’s been a long time coming. Since Baz (McCullum) has taken over last year, the way we have played in the last two games is the way our coach wants us to play. It suits our talent to play this way,” he added.
However, the KKR skipper had to face a fine of Rs 24 lakh for maintaining a slow over rate in the match against MI in Abu Dhabi. Notably, this match was also KKR’s first win over MI since April 2019.
Continue Reading on Spot Latest
