Kolkata Knight Riders dominated possession for about 80% of the match,
but conceded goals in the last few minutes of either half. Playing his
first match of this IPL, Manpreet Gony won Kings XI Punjab this game out
of nowhere. The hosts were dead and buried reeling under a Sunil Narine
hat-trick when Gony walked out to bat, but his 18-ball 42 gave Kings XI
a target to bowl to. Still, Gautam Gambhir and Eoin Morgan were
cruising home when Gony came back for his second spell, but those three
overs for six runs - two of them wides - and the wicket of Gambhir
caused enough panic for Knight Riders to crumble.
Forget the unfathomable - in Twenty20 - spin of Sunil Narine and
Sachithra Senanayake, which got Knight Riders the four big wickets of
Kings XI's overseas batsmen for just 13 runs off 15 balls, it was the
Indian domestic batsmen's ineptitude against the bouncer that proved to
be the decider. Kings XI lost four of their batsmen to balls pitched
short, but crucially, Knight Riders' Manoj Tiwary and Yusuf Pathan were
deers in headlights when confronted with accurate bouncers.
When Tiwary came out to bat at the fall of Gambhir for a third straight
half-century, Knight Riders needed only 52 off 41 with seven wickets in
hand. Gony bounced him again and again, and it got uglier and uglier for
Tiwary as he faced seven balls for one run, slogged at more than half
of them, and left Knight Riders stuck. Yusuf wasn't much better, except
that he lasted longer, and managed a top edge over the keeper in his 13
off 16.
The crucial difference between the two innings was that Mandeep Singh
and Manan Vohra of Kings XI had scored some runs - Mandeep managed a
crucial 41 - before they were bounced. And when bounced, they didn't
waste balls, and got out. Tiwary and Yusuf couldn't get out, and
suddenly Knight Riders needed 30 off the last two overs. The problem for
Kings XI was that they had run out of the overs from Azhar Mahmood, who
took three wickets including that of Jacques Kallis and Morgan
No comments:
Post a Comment