31st match
Gujarat Lions 149/7 (20/20 ov)
Delhi Daredevils 150/2 (17.2/20 ov)
Delhi Daredevils won by 8 wickets (with 16 balls remaining)
In another clinical display, Delhi Daredevils' bowlers restricted table-toppers Gujarat Lions to 149, setting up a convincing eight-wicket win in Rajkot's last game of the season. In the chase, Rishabh Pant and Quinton de Kock blazed a 115-run partnership off 81 balls - the side's fourth-highest opening stand - to help Daredevils breeze to the second spot on the points table. Despite successive losses, Lions retained their place at the top. It was the 23rd win by a chasing side in 31 games this season.
After opting to bowl, Daredevils' bowlers set the game up with the first four overs. It looked like Shahbaz Nadeem had trapped Brendon McCullum in front in the first over, but umpire Chris Gaffaney indicated that the batsman had got an inside edge. After facing three off the first 16 balls, McCullum charged at a Zaheer Khan slower ball. Like most of Zaheer's offcutters this season, it beat McCullum's wild swing and clipped the off stump.
Two balls later, Smith chipped a long-hop from Nadeem to long-on. In the same over, Aaron Finch, who returned after a hamstring injury, got a leading edge off his attempted sweep to short fine leg. Lions' three overseas batsmen were dismissed and already, the middle order was limited to singles and twos into Saurashtra Cricket Association Stadium's large pockets. The score at the end of six overs read 35 for 3, Lions' lowest Powerplay returns of the season.
Apart from a well-timed upper cut for six, Suresh Raina struggled to find his timing. Dinesh Karthik, though, accrued his runs through well-placed sweeps and flicks in the ground's vast expanses. Just when it looked like Lions had consolidated after the early jolt, Raina was stumped after misjudging a googly from Amit Mishra.
Thereafter, Ravindra Jadeja and Karthik resorted to the same modus operandi as the previous few overs. However, the pair set up a solid platform for the end overs. Since the 13th over, Lions found at least one boundary an over, save the 19th.
The last five overs yielded 50 as Daredevils couldn't prevent do much to prevent twos. Yet, such was the damage done in the first four overs that Lions could only muster a sub-par 149.
De Kock and Pant, promoted to the opening slot, effectively finished the game by plundering nine boundaries in a 61-run Powerplay. Pant was particularly dominant with scythed cuts off the seamers' wide offerings. When the ball was straight, Pant used his strong bottom-hand to whip fours through the arc at midwicket.
After matching Pant in the Powerplay, de Kock laid anchor and milked the bowling for singles. Pant, though, did not slow down. He used his feet to smear and swipe towards the long-on region as he struck his first limited-overs fifty, off 25 balls.
Both Pant and de Kock were dismissed after across-the-line heaves, but Sanju Samson and JP Duminy, who returned after regaining fitness, took Daredevils home with 16 balls remaining.
32nd match
Kolkata Knight Riders 164/3 (20/20 ov)
Kings XI Punjab 157/9 (20/20 ov)
Kolkata Knight Riders won by 7 runs
"One interesting decision and everyone forgets you hit a fifty in the last game." It seemed Glenn Maxwell was still smarting from an incorrect caught-behind decision in Kings XI Punjab's previous game against Gujarat Lions. He couldn't score any runs then, but on Wednesday, it was almost like he couldn't be stopped.
Almost, because Piyush Chawla found a way, and did so at the perfect time. Maxwell fell for 68 off 42 balls with his side still 45 runs away from a target of 165 with only 26 balls in hand. A well-populated Eden Gardens reveled in the tension. So did a bowling attack that featured six internationals. Kolkata Knight Riders closed out a victory by seven runs and climbed to the top of the table.
Andre Russell had 11 runs to defend in the final over and he did so by picking up one wicket, apart from two run-outs, to finish with 4 for 20 in four overs. He was Knight Riders' battering ram, but he needed Chawla to make that decisive dent. By contrast, Kings XI were reliant on one man and he had far too much to do.
Maxwell took on the challenge though. He came in with the score on 13 for 3 and his determination to contribute was apparent in the shots he played - flicks and cuts against the Knight Riders quicks, who bowled too short at him, and powerful lofts down the ground against the spinners. Essentially, Maxwell wanted to limit the risks he took. His fifty came off only 29 balls, by which time he had played only one reverse sweep.
Towards the end of his innings, the cross-batted shots kept coming out and one of them did him in. Maxwell misread a googly from Chawla, played a reverse sweep against the turn and was adjudged lbw by umpire Anil Chaudhary. The batsman walked off unhappy because he felt he was hit outside the line of off stump, and while replays indicated more than half the ball had been outside the line, some of his anger may have been directed at himself. He was the only Kings XI batsman who showed any kind of control and with him out of the way, Knight Riders breezed past the finish line.
The result seemed never in doubt when Russell had knocked over Marcus Stoinis and Vohra in his first two overs. Morne Morkel had M Vijay caught at mid-off in the fourth over as the Kings XI top order paid the price for not taking time to understand a slow pitch.
Knight Riders fared better in that department as well. Gautam Gambhir and Robin Uthappa struck fluent half-centuries and added 101 runs for the opening partnership. Though the run-rate they maintained was only 7.48, they laid an excellent foundation for the big-hitters down the order by punishing a bowling line-up that couldn't get their length right.
On a sluggish pitch, short-pitched bowling allowed the batsman time to pick his spots, as Stoinis found out in the third over when Gambhir pulled a couple of fours away. It also allowed time to recover after making a mistake, as Mohit Sharma found out in the fourth over when Uthappa came forward to a back of a length delivery and was still able to drive it past point.
On top of that, Kings XI dropped Uthappa three balls after Gambhir was run-out. The culprit, Mohit, recovered well though. He and Sandeep Sharma switched to a mix of yorkers and slower deliveries for the last five overs. That meant Yusuf Pathan and Russell could not bring their power-hitting into play and Knight Riders had to settle for only 43 runs in that period.
Kings XI have dropped to the bottom of the table with six losses in eight games. They went in with only three overseas players on Wednesday - Maxwell, Stoinis and David Miller - after Shaun Marsh's back injury ruled him out of the IPL two days ago. Hashim Amla, who was brought in as a replacement, sat out because he had arrived in India on the day of the match and had had very little time to prepare.
33rd match
Delhi Daredevils 162/7 (20/20 ov)
Rising Pune Supergiants 166/3 (19.1/20 ov)
Rising Pune Supergiants won by 7 wickets (with 5 balls remaining)
Rising Pune Supergiants had been marred by four major injuries in the last two weeks and were reeling at the bottom half of the points table with six losses from eight matches. But against Delhi Daredevils at the Feroz Shah Kotla, they fell back on the reliable shoulders of Ajinkya Rahane, Rajat Bhatia and a brisk innings from IPL debutant Usman Khawaja to hand the hosts their second loss in their last four matches.
Supergiants first restricted Daredevils to 162 by slowing them down in the middle overs and taking regular wickets. The top order then, led by Rahane's unbeaten and unflustered 63, made sure the chase, which got slightly tense towards the end, was sealed with five balls to spare.
This looked like anyone's game when Supergiants needed 37 from the last three overs. Captain MS Dhoni, who promoted himself to No. 4, struck a four and a straight six off Mohammed Shami, soon after five wides earlier in the 18th over, to bring the equation down to 17 from 12. Iman Tahir removed Dhoni with the first ball of the 19th over but two lusty sixes from Thisara Perera meant Supergiants needed three from the last over and Rahane finished it with a flicked four.
Khawaja and Rahane accelerated in the chase after the third over by mainly targeting the quicks. They saw through Jayant Yadav's three overs of offspin and reached 50 when the Powerplay ended. Amit Mishra's googly and thrift then combined to stump Khawaja, who had already been dropped on 8 and had survived run-out chances on 9 and 22, for 30.
Rahane continued in his usual risk-free and unruffled fashion and he was hardly troubled by JP Duminy and Carlos Brathwaite in a second-wicket partnership of 45 with Saurabh Tiwary. But Tahir had Tiwary caught at deep midwicket in the 14th over. By then, Supergiants were still 59 adrift with 40 balls remaining.
Dhoni smashed his fourth ball for a six and after Supergiants took 13 runs off the next 16 balls, they needed 37 from 18. Duminy gave the ball to Shami who sent five wides way down the leg side on the second ball of the over and once Dhoni took strike, he tilted the momentum back with consecutive boundaries to make it easier for Rahane.
Daredevils, who were asked to bat, were largely anchored by their stand-in captain Duminy, as Zaheer Khan had a niggle, but other batsmen could not convert starts into big scores. Once Dinda knocked over Rishabh Pant's off stump in the third over, Karun Nair and Sanju Samson started scoring boundaries on both sides of the pitch to lift the run rate above eight. But Samson handed a simple catch to midwicket on the last ball of the Powerplay.
Duminy, meanwhile, kept the score ticking by scoring at nearly run a ball but was running out of partners. Bhatia took the pace off the ball for another economical spell and Nair soon holed out to sweeper cover, for 32 off 23, while trying to break free.
Sam Billings combined with Duminy to quickly score 24 runs out of the 45 they put together in five overs. Billings had struck R Ashwin for two consecutive sixes and posed a big threat before a switch-hit ended his innings. Brathwaite then took on M Ashwin for two more sixes but impressive fielding from Rahane and Tiwary resulted in two run-outs. Pawan Negi's unbeaten 19 off 12 balls provided Daredevils a late push but it wasn't enough.
34th match
Gujarat Lions 126/6 (20/20 ov)
Sunrisers Hyderabad 129/5 (19/20 ov)
Sunrisers Hyderabad won by 5 wickets (with 6 balls remaining)
The quality and depth of Sunrisers Hyderabad's seam attack proved the decisive factor in a low-scoring scrap against Gujarat Lions on a two-paced pitch at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium. Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Ashish Nehra and Mustafizur Rahman bowled with skill and nous to restrict Lions to 126, and though Sunrisers lost wickets regularly, the smallness of their target meant their batsmen never had to over-extend themselves.
Apart from having a set target to aim for, Sunrisers were helped by the conditions easing somewhat in the second innings, with a little less swing for the Lions new-ball bowlers. David Warner gave the chase early momentum, hitting two sixes off Pradeep Sangwan in the second over. On a slow pitch, Sangwan provided pace onto the bat, and also bowled the wrong lengths; when he came back in the 13th over, he began with a short ball outside off and a half-volley on the pads, and Dhawan put both away for four.
Lions' bowlers did well to take the game as far as the 19th over, but provided hittable balls just a little more frequently than their Sunrisers counterparts had done. With Sunrisers needing 40 from 31, Ravindra Jadeja bowled a quicker one wide of off stump with third man inside the circle, and Deepak Hooda dabbed it away to the fielder's left. With 34 needed off 27, the otherwise excellent Dhawal Kulkarni - who had troubled Yuvraj Singh with the short ball on the way to a wicket maiden - gave Dhawan a wide long-hop. With 12 needed from 10 balls, Praveen Kumar bowled a half-volley, at his normal pace, that Naman Ojha lofted down the ground. Dhawan ended the match in that Praveen over, clipping and flat-batting him for successive fours.
It had rained in Hyderabad on the eve of the match, and it was still overcast, with swarms of insects flying around the players' faces, when Bhuvneshwar ran in for the first ball. The conditions encouraged swing, and Dwayne Smith couldn't put bat to the first four balls of the match. Three were outswingers that beat his outside edge, one an inswinger that struck him on the front pad. Smith connected off the next two balls, but hit both straight to backward point.
Nehra followed that maiden with another, puzzling Brendon McCullum with a mix of balls swinging into him and balls that went with the angle across him. Some of them held up on the pitch, adding to the batsman's discomfort.
When 0 for 0 became 2 for 1 in the next over, Smith's record against Bhuvneshwar in all T20s read: 52 balls faced, 38 runs scored, two dismissals.
Suresh Raina injected urgency into Lions' innings when he slogged Nehra and Bhuvneshwar for sixes in successive overs, but he only lasted 10 balls, consumed by the tendency of the ball to stop on this pitch.
Mustafizur, coming on in the sixth over, nearly struck with his first ball, as McCullum skewed a wide-ish cutter high over point, but the backtracking Dhawan juggled and then dropped the ball. Another cutter three balls later opened up Dinesh Karthik, and Kane Williamson threw himself to his left to complete a low, one-handed stunner.
McCullum's uncomfortable stay ended in the eighth over, as he toe-ended Moises Henriques to long-off. Henriques and Barinder Sran provided tight back-up to the three main seamers, taking the pace off the ball and bowling stump-to-stump.
Lions recovered somewhat as Dwayne Bravo and Aaron Finch put on 45 for the fifth wicket, but both of them had to scrounge for their runs. So did the rest of the batting. Mustafizur remained an unsolved puzzle, the right-handers finding it almost impossible to hit against his combination of angle and break off the pitch - they had only two scoring shots off him through the leg side.
Warner dropped a sitter off Finch in the 16th over, when he was on 30, but the excellence of Mustafizur, Nehra and Bhuvneshwar meant it wasn't a costly miss. Between them, they only conceded 35 off the last four overs. Given Lions' slow start, that was never going to be enough of a finish to reach a competitive total.
35th match
Rising Pune Supergiants 191/6 (20/20 ov)
RCB 195/3 (19.3/20 ov)
Royal Challengers Bangalore won by 7 wickets (with 3 balls remaining)
"I hope it doesn't prove costly," a miked-up George Bailey murmured after narrowly missing an opportunity to run Virat Kohli out. Kohli had been on 4 at the time. He ended up smoking an unbeaten 108 off 58, made a chase of 192 look almost routine and steered Royal Challengers Bangalore to victory over Rising Pune Supergiants.
Supergiants' total was founded on fifties from Ajinkya Rahane and Saurabh Tiwary and, even more so, on a litany of errors from Royal Challengers in the field. But, led by Kohli, and boosted by crucial knocks from KL Rahul and Shane Watson, Royal Challengers brought the full force of their batting might to bear on a hapless bowling attack.
A chase of 192 requires a good start, and it was provided by Kohli and Rahul. There were three quiet at the start before a series of classy drives - along the ground and through the air - took the score to 94 without loss by the 11th over. Supergiants hit back in the next over when legspinner Adam Zampa, on IPL debut, dismissed Rahul and then the dangerous AB de Villiers as well.
With 89 needed off 42, Shane Watson combined lusty strikes with streaky edges and before the bowler Thisara Perera knew it he had given away five fours in an over. With back-to-back sixes off Rajat Bhatia, whose slow cutters had started to become predictable, Watson brought the equation to 50 off 30 balls.
The next two overs belonged to Supergiants - RP Singh dismissed Watson and R Ashwin, introduced in the 17th over, conceded just seven. But Kohli remained. He plundered four sixes and a four off Zampa and RP Singh to leave just four runs to get off the final over, and applied the finishing touch himself. Kohli became the quickest batsman to 500 runs in an IPL season; achieving the landmark in eight innings, one better than his team-mate Chris Gayle, who was left out of the XI on Saturday.
Unlike their captain, the Royal Challengers bowlers and fielders were off their game. Missed chances have been a persistent irritant for them this season, but they graduated to a battering ram of woe today.
Tiwary was dropped twice in as many balls in the sixth over; Stuart Binny missed a straightforward chance at short cover and Sachin Baby was unable to hold on despite getting both hands behind the ball at point. Tiwary received a third life, on 25, when Rahul fluffed a stumping and went on to make 52 off 39 balls. It was his second fifty in three matches.
The worst of Royal Challengers' errors came in the eighth over, when Rahane was surprised by Varun Aaron's extra bounce and the ball popped up towards where silly mid-on might have been. Both the bowler and Watson, running in from midwicket attempted to get under it, but no one went for the catch. The ball landed barely a foot from Watson.
Rahane finished with 78 off 48 balls, with eight fours and two sixes. His sixth half-century of the season put Supergiants on course for a total over 200. They went into the final five overs with eight wickets in hand and that allowed the batsmen coming in to look for runs despite risk. Supergiants did get 53 off these overs, but they needed a lot more considering Kohli was going to be in his happy place - with a target to chase.
36th match
Kings XI Punjab 181/5 (20/20 ov)
Delhi Daredevils 172/5 (20/20 ov)
Kings XI Punjab won by 9 runs
Fifty four runs off 36 balls with eight wickets in hand should have been a cruise for Delhi Daredevils. Instead, they were undone by an outstanding display of end-overs bowling by Marcus Stoinis, Sandeep Sharma and Mohit Sharma as Kings XI Punjab breathed life into a flagging campaign with a nine-run win, their third in nine matches this season at the PCA Stadium in Mohali.
Carlos Brathwaite and Chris Morris, capable of lusty hitting, were bested by a train of slow leg-cutters interspersed with a few quick short balls. Kings XI defence of 181 for 5 was all the more remarkable because they had to battle the dew as well. Daredevils finished with 172 for 5 to go down for the second time in three nights.
Quinton De Kock did the early running in a superbly-timed 30-ball 52. Neither the asking rate nor the fact that he was left out of the previous match had little effect on his approach as Daredevils overcame a slow start - the first four overs fetched just 23 - to build a solid base with a 70-run opening stand in 7.5 overs.
De Kock's enterprise - he raised his fifty off just 27 balls - allowed Sanju Samson the opportunity to milk the runs as Kings XI suddenly started to wilt under the pressure. De Kock slicing Stoinis' slower delivery to point came as a soothing balm, until they ran into the in-form Karun Nair. The Karnataka batsman, without intimidating, effectively brought the target down to manageable proportions by mixing singles with the odd boundary. Samson showed the first signs of attack immediately after a strategy break, by launching KC Cariappa over long-off in the 10th over as Daredevils went into the second half needing 91 with nine wickets in hand.
As the ball got older, there was grip and a hint of bounce s the ball hit certain areas on the pitch. Suddenly, runs didn't flow as freely as they did until that point, leaving Nair and Samson to manufacture shots. With the surface slowing down a touch, Kings XI had a semblance of opportunity going into the last six overs. But the pressure of having faced three dot balls off Mohit resulted in an uncharacteristic swipe from Nair, but was shelled at wide long-on by David Miller. Three balls later, Miller redeemed himself to dismiss Nair with a tumbling catch at long-off, leaving Daredevils needing 48 off 27 balls.
A deflated unit suddenly lifted themselves, with Vijay bringing his strike bowlers back. While there was brief panic when Brathwaite muscled a four and six in the 18th over to bring the equation down to 29 off 14, his dismissal to a well thought-out short-ball trap - he holed out to deep midwicket - brought about an air of inevitability to the chase.
That Kings XI gave themselves an opportunity to defend a score which Vijay described as "above par" was courtesy Stoinis and Wriddhiman Saha. Daredevils misfielded to give away a handful of runs and missed runs outs. The bowlers also relaxed once they had the wickets of Vijay and Hashim Amla, on IPL debut, in the space of eight deliveries to leave Kings XI on 48 for 2 in seven overs.
Stoinis countered Daredevils' spin threat by getting to the pitch of the ball and targeting the shorter straight boundaries at one end. His six of Shahbaz Nadeem, the left-arm spinner, in the ninth over was the only big hit between overs 7-11. Briefly, Daredevils threatened to stagnate the innings after the halfway mark, but Saha kept the scorecard tickling along and moved quietly into the 30s. The pair brought up their half-century stand off just 33 deliveries, with not one shot played in anger or frustration. There was no mindless slogging either as their pair took time against some disciplined bowling from Chris Morris and Amit Mishra, before finding their range.
Once set, Saha took apart a gingerly Zaheer Khan, bowling off a short run-up, for 16 runs off his third over, the 16th of the innings. He pulled, flicked and cut with touch of disdain as he brought up his first 50 plus score since the IPL final in 2014 against Kolkata Knight Riders.
The dismissal of Glenn Maxwell, who walked across and missed a flick off Morris, and Saha off successive deliveries, with 11 balls still to play, briefly gave Daredevils hope of restricting Kings XI below 165. But Axar's unbeaten 5-ball 16 gave them a few extra runs to defend, which proved more than handy in the end.
37th match
Sunrisers Hyderabad 177/3 (20/20 ov)
Mumbai Indians 92 (16.3/20 ov)
Sunrisers Hyderabad won by 85 runs
It was a 'home' game for Mumbai Indians, but it was Sunrisers Hyderabad, whose base is geographically closest to Visakhapatnam, that rode on Shikhar Dhawan's unbeaten 82 and Ashish Nehra's new-ball burst that fetched him three wickets, to defend 177 with aplomb. A sixth win in nine matches assured them a second spot for the moment, irrespective of the result between Kolkata Knight Riders and Gujarat Lions at Eden Gardens on Sunday.
Four of Rohit Sharma's five half-centuries resulted in successful chases for Mumbai this season. Against Sunrisers, he lasted three balls and exposed a middle order that has thrived on Rohit's holding role. They couldn't find form against a rampaging Nehra, whose late swing broke Mumbai's backbone with the strikes of Rohit, Ambati Rayudu and Jos Buttler. At 30 for 4 after four overs, it was a case of trying to limit damage for Mumbai, with Sunrisers' bowling depth shining through once again in their 85-run win at the ACA-VDCA Stadium.
Rohit poked at an inswinger with leaden feet, and a thick inside edge clattered into off stump. Rayudu, Mumbai's second-highest run-scorer this season, fended a skiddy bouncer to point, while Butter was pouched by Naman Ojha, who stuck out his right hand to pull off a one-handed stunner. The meltdown was complete when Kieron Pollard miscued a slower ball to long-on in the ninth over to leave Mumbai in tatters at 49 for 6.
The brisk start was once again provided by David Warner, who dispatched offerings from Mumbai's pacers as Sunrisers raced to 51 in the Powerplay after being sent in. The effervescence of his strokeplay forced Rohit to pack the off-side field with five fielders at one stage. Still, he pierced the gap as the bowlers continued to offer him width.
Warner's enterprise allowed Shikhar Dhawan to slip into the anchor role, but his sweetly-timed strokes on a fast outfield allowed him to find the boundary regularly. Both batsmen used the depth of the crease to ride the bounce on a fresh surface.
After the Powerplay, Dhawan used deft touches and flicks to give Warner as much strike even as Mumbai's spinners, in an effort to stem the damage, tried to fire the ball in. Warner welcomed Harbhajan with a biff for six over long-on before receiving a succession of darts outside off, which he failed to squeeze through.
Warner holed out to Pollard at long-off, off Harbhajan, in the 10th over to give Mumbai some relief. In the next over, Harbhajan set up Kane Williamson by deceiving him in flight, and Rohit completed a low catch at midwicket. The double-strike stalled Sunrisers, who managed just 31 off the five overs following Warner's dismissal.
In the 15th over, Yuvraj Singh signalled the switch in momentum again as he made room and scorched a drive into the cover boundary. Yuvraj followed that with a clean connection that sent a slower delivery soaring over wide long-on for six, as he maximised timing with minimal feet movement.
At the other end, Dhawan used his strong wrists to pepper the leg-side field. He accelerated the run-scoring once past his half-century, hitting Jasprit Bumrah for three fours in four balls in the 16th over. Yuvraj and Dhawan's 85-run stand off 49 balls came to an end when Yuvraj clattered his stumps to be out hit-wicket, but the end-overs carnage gave them the momentum which Nehra rode to derail the chase.
Mustafizur Rahman, introduced in the ninth over, struck twice in successive overs to effectively finish Mumbai off. Harbhajan hung around to delay Mumbai's fifth loss before Barinder Sran closed the game out by dismissing Bumrah in the 17th over. By winning in the manner they did, Sunrisers also boosted their net run-rate, a factor that could come in handy if teams are tied on points.
38th match
Kolkata Knight Riders 158/4 (20/20 ov)
Gujarat Lions 164/5 (18/20 ov)
Gujarat Lions won by 5 wickets (with 12 balls remaining)
The skill of Gujarat Lions' seam attack, led by Praveen Kumar, beat the depth of Kolkata Knight Riders as they jumped to the top of the table at Eden Gardens on Sunday. Praveen and Dhawal Kulkarni maximised the advantage of bowling under overcast skies by swinging the ball both ways to reduce Knight Riders to 24 for 4 by the end of the Powerplay. Half-centuries from Yusuf Pathan and Shakib Al Hasan lift the hosts to 158 for 4. Dinesh Karthik's busy half-century and a string of cameos then sealed Lions' seventh win with five wickets in hand and 12 balls to spare.
Praveen laid down the marker in the first over with a big inswinger, which zipped through Gautam Gambhir's gate and nearly shaved the off stump. Suresh Raina strengthened the slip cordon and even added a leg-slip, perhaps teasing Gambhir to glance the ball fine. The Knight Riders captain attempted the glance, only to deflect the ball off the thigh to the stumps in Praveen's second over. A ball later, he had Manish Pandey nicking behind for a duck. By the time Dhawal Kulkarni dismissed Robin Uthappa in a similar fashion in his second over, Knight Riders had lost more then two wickets in the Powerplay for the first time this season.
Praveen's third over was a maiden and Suryakumar Yadav fell to a stunning catch from Raina at slip. Lions could have also had Shakib on 3 had Pravin Tambe, returning from injury, not dropped a tough chance at third man. Instead, Shakib combined with Yusuf to spark a revival - they put together an unbroken 134, the highest for the fifth wicket in all IPLs.
Yusuf did the early running, drilling left-arm wrist spinner Shivil Kaushik for back-to-back boundaries in the 10th over. The introduction of spin marked a stark shift in momentum and the pair took 55 runs in six overs between Kaushik, Ravindra Jadeja, and Tambe. "When you have too may options, sometimes you get confused," Raina said after the match.
By the time Dwayne Bravo came back for a second spell, Yusuf was in his groove and went on to bring up a half-century off 32 balls. Shakib had been on 24 off 32 balls, but shifted gears from Yusuf to pick up the mantle in the end overs. Shakib cracked 42 runs off his next 17 balls to finish with 66 off 49 balls, even as Yusuf was subdued by yorkers from round the wicket by Praveen and Bravo.
Shakib's twin scoops off Praveen were the only blemishes in an otherwise pinpoint bowling performance. After taking the Man-of-the-Match award Praveen said that he relished bowling in the Powerplay as well in the slog overs.
The chase was a cruise, largely because of Karthik's third half-century of the season. Behind the stumps and in front of them, Karthik is a hyperactive player. It resonated when he was nutmegged twice while keeping. It also shone through when he began his innings with three successive fours in the ninth over, off Brad Hogg. The first one was reverse-swept against the turn while the second was conventionally swept for four. The third was flicked through midwicket. Karthik was dropped on 40 and 51, but he was stumped a ball after the second reprieve.
The chase was set up by a 42-run opening stand between Brendon McCullum and Dwayne Smith. They rediscovered their mojo and struck seven fours and three sixes between them, before being dismissed by spin in a space of 14 balls. Raina was then bounced out by Andre Russell for 14 off 18 balls. Aaron Finch, who had not taken the field in the chase against Sunrisers Hyderabad on Friday, began with a cover-driven four and launched Shakib inside-out for a six. He teed off further by hitting Piyush Chawla for three successive boundaries before being run-out for a 10-ball 29. Jadeja finished the chase with a slog-swept six over long-on.
39th match
RCB 175/6 (20/20 ov)
Kings XI Punjab 174/4 (20/20 ov)
Royal Challengers Bangalore won by 1 run
AB de Villiers plundered 64 runs in a 35-ball display of masterful batting, after Royal Challengers Bangalore slumped to 67 for 3 against Kings XI Punjab in Mohali. He used powerful drives and improvised sweeps to lift Royal Challengers to 175 - their ninth successive 170-plus total - which they defended by one run in a thriller.
M Vijay made an accomplished 57-ball 89 to keep Kings XI in the hunt for much of the chase. Royal Challengers' bowling attack, though, found a way to respond to severe criticism with a good display of end-overs bowling, making use of Mohali's long square boundaries. Kings XI required 24 off the last two overs but Shane Watson varied his pace and lengths to concede just seven in the penultimate over. Chris Jordan, playing his second IPL game, was driven through cover for four by Marcus Stoinis off the second ball of the final over, and missed his yorker again off the third ball, which Stoinis muscled over the long-off boundary to bring the contest into Kings XI's grasp. But Stoinis could only muster a brace of twos off the second half of the over.
Kings XI's chase began in sprightly fashion with the openers, Vijay and Hashim Amla, finding the boundary in every over of the Powerplay except the first. Amla holed out to midwicket in the sixth over, off a back-of-a-length ball from Watson. With the asking rate climbing, Vijay ensured Kings XI stayed in touch with frequent boundaries, particularly with pulls through square leg as the bowlers peppered a short length.
However, Yuzvendra Chahal dented the chase in the 11th over. He first beat Wriddhiman Saha's heave with a ripping legbreak. Rahul failed to catch the ball cleanly behind the stumps, and it bounced off his pad onto his helmet - which ruled out the stumping - but picked it up off the ground and completed the run out with the batsman still a couple of inches short of his crease. Off his next ball, Chahal drew David Miller forward and sneaked a slider past his drive. It was Miller's first duck in his IPL career.
Kings XI required 40 off four overs, and Kohli turned to Watson with Vijay in control of the chase. Vijay holed out to square leg as Watson delivered a rising short ball that forced the batsman to pull towards the longer boundary.
Watson returned figures of 2 for 22 in a high-scoring game and had done just done enough for Royal Challengers. "It's trying to pre-empt what the batsman is trying to do," Watson said at the post-match presentation. "It helps that I'm also a batsman, and then bowl a ball that is slightly out of the hitting zone."
After being inserted, Royal Challengers were provided a quickfire start courtesy KL Rahul's crisp strokeplay. Virat Kohli, by comparison, struggled for timing. Kohli wafted at two length deliveries from Mohit Sharma in the third over - and sliced both uppishly, squarer than intended; the first lobbed over point and the second went straight to Stoinis at backward point. He let the ball burst through his hands.
Stoinis was introduced in the next over and Rahul capitalised on loose offerings on both sides of the wicket. Four successive boundaries, including a superlatively timed cover drive for six, meant Royal Challengers were coasting.
Just when it looked like Kohli was setting himself for another innings of substance, legspinner KC Cariappa struck. First Rahul, looking to sweep, was bowled after missing Cariappa's seam-up quicker delivery. Two balls later, Kohli reached out for another wide delivery with leaden feet, and drove to Vijay at cover. Royal Challengers were rattled.
They were soon reeling when Shane Watson failed to connect with an attempted pull off a straight ball from Axar Patel. Royal Challengers had slipped from 63 for 0 to 67 for 3.
AB de Villiers and Sachin Baby were forced to milk the bowling through the middle overs. Between the ninth and the 15th overs, the pair accumulated 46 runs with two fours. Thereafter, de Villiers cut loose. Aware of the Kings XI seamers' ability to bowl accurate yorkers, he got low and peppered the backward square leg area with deft scoops and sweeps. When the ball was wider outside off, he accrued boundaries with slapped drives through the cover region. He found two boundaries an over after the 15th and brought up his fourth fifty of the season before finding short third man with a sliced drive. Baby and Travis Head added 20 off the last two overs to lift Royal Challengers to 175.
40th match
Sunrisers Hyderabad 137/8 (20/20 ov)
Rising Pune Supergiants 133/8 (20/20 ov)
Sunrisers Hyderabad won by 4 runs
Sunrisers Hyderabad possess perhaps the best - and certainly the most in-form - pace attack in the IPL, and this proved decisive in bowler-friendly conditions that produced a low-scoring thriller against Rising Pune Supergiants in Visakhapatnam. There was turn, and R Ashwin and Adam Zampa - whose figures of 6 for 19 were the second-best in the tournament's history - helped keep Sunrisers down to 137, but there was also swing for the new ball, a bit of bounce, and grip for Mustafizur Rahman's cutters.
The chase was a chess game. MS Dhoni promoted George Bailey and Ashwin to Nos. 3 and 4 after the early loss of both openers, with the third-wicket pair ostensibly instructed to push the ball around and stabilise Supergiants' innings, given the modest required rate. Bailey and Ashwin put on 49 in eight overs, and when the partnership ended Supergiants needed 70 from 48 balls. Dhoni didn't walk in then; he came in with 60 required from 40.
It came down to 42 off the last four, and Dhoni and Thisara Perera, conscious of the risk of hitting out against Mustafizur, were content to take singles and twos against the left-armer. The ploy kept Mustafizur wicketless, even as he conceded only 13 in his last two overs. Dhoni and Perera made up for that in the 18th over, in which they took 15 off Bhuvneshwar Kumar, but they were still left needing 14 from the last over.
Ashish Nehra started the final over with a full ball that Perera couldn't get under, and then a perfect yorker that Dhoni could only hit for one. Perera skied the third ball to extra cover, leaving 12 to get off the last three. Dhoni hammered the first of them - a full toss - over the wide long-on boundary, but when he was run-out going for a second that didn't really exist - he went for it because he simply had to - Zampa was left needing to hit a six to win it off the last ball, or a four to tie. He only managed an outside edge to a flying Naman Ojha behind the stumps as Nehra closed the match with a wide yorker.
The win took Sunrisers top of the table, and left Supergiants with close to no chance of qualifying for the playoffs.
The captain winning the toss had chosen to bowl in each of the 20 IPL games that preceded this one, and David Warner raised a few eyebrows - including Dhoni's - by opting to bat. Given the swing and bounce available to the quicks, a traditional good length was a pretty good T20 length as well, and Ashok Dinda and RP Singh, by dint of denying the batsmen width, kept Sunrisers to 34 in the first six overs, while dismissing Warner.
Ashwin, often used sporadically by Dhoni in recent weeks, came on at the start of the non-Powerplay overs, and immediately found the pitch to his liking. His third ball spun from just outside off stump and turned a long way down the leg side, beating not just the advancing Kane Williamson but MS Dhoni as well. His fourth dipped on Shikhar Dhawan, left him searching far out in front of his body for a flick, and ran off the leading edge through point.
Ashwin finished his full quota in one go, dangling the ball above the batsmen's eyeline and teasing them with dip and turn. He got Dhawan to hole out in his third over, and only conceded one run in his fourth, with two slips breathing down Yuvraj Singh's neck.
When Ashwin finished his spell, Sunrisers were 70 for 2 in 13 overs. Williamson and Yuvraj hit two fours and two sixes in the next two, off Rajat Bhatia and Perera, before the advancing Yuvraj skewed a Zampa googly to long-off. Williamson and Henriques took 12 off the 17th, bowled by Perera, before Zampa dismissed both of them in the 18th, off successive balls. Both holed out to long-off, but the bowler played a big role in at least one of the dismissals, forcing Williamson to reach out for a wide legbreak.
Dinda came back for the 19th, and - in hindsight -bowled a match-turning over, conceding 15. The four and six he conceded in that over came off attempted yorkers that didn't miss the mark by much, but missed it by enough. Ojha whipped away the leg-stump half-volley, and Deepak Hooda deposited the full-toss high over midwicket.
Dhoni, often averse to bowling spinners at the death, threw the ball back to Zampa. Hooda ran down and hit his first ball for six, but the bowler saw him stepping out again and fired in a wide legbreak. Then, off the last three balls of the innings, he bowled Ojha off the thigh pad with a slider, saw RP Singh put a skier down off Barinder Sran at short third man, and had Bhuvneshwar caught at long-on. Little would he have known then, as he walked off smiling, that he would be called on to bat with a boundary required off the last ball of the match.
41st match
RCB 151/4 (20/20 ov)
Mumbai Indians 153/4 (18.4/20 ov)
Mumbai Indians won by 6 wickets (with 8 balls remaining)
There was a lot of work to do for Mumbai Indians, and the sanest way to go about it at the M Chinnaswamy stadium was to chase. 'Forget about the Sunrisers game' was the message from their camp but that's easier said than done after you have been knocked out for 92 and lost by 85 runs. So Rohit Sharma and his bowlers did the next best thing - they drew a rage from it, the rage to win and show they were better. Mumbai allowed Royal Challengers Bangalore to score only 151 and chased it with six wickets to spare.
The pitch on Wednesday was the one that had been used in Bangalore's first IPL game this season, when the hosts had amassed 227 for 4. But it behaved rather unnaturally. It was dry and offered grip even to a brand-new ball, which contributed to Kohli's first single-digit score in this IPL. Then Chris Gayle, who had been dropped against Rising Pune Supergiants on Saturday and didn't play against Kings XI Punjab on Monday either, was dismissed for his fourth single-digit score in four innings.
Mitchell McClenaghan and Tim Southee were responsible for those blows. Their back-of-a-length barrage, with emphasis on not giving room or leverage, followed by Krunal Pandya's stingy left-arm spin had Royal Challengers at 25 for 2, their third lowest Powerplay score in Bangalore in all IPLs. It was an effort worthy of the reward - all three put their feet up for the entire second innings.
That didn't mean Mumbai's chase was clinical. They needed 73 off the final seven overs when Kieron Pollard came to the crease at No. 5. He may not have imagined the finisher's job to be tough considering the asking rate at the start had been a modest 7.6. But the legspinner Yuzvendra Chahal, who took 1 for 16 in four overs, and the left-arm seamer S Aravind, who was brought in for Iqbal Abdulla and took a wicket off his first ball, created complications in the first 10 overs.
But the back-end bowling specialists for the home team were not quite as good as the back-end batting specialists for Mumbai as Pollard, with 35 off 19, and Jos Buttler, with 29 off 11, hauled them over the line. Shane Watson's wide yorkers missed their mark by a few inches and he was punished. Pollard struck him for his 400th six in the 17th over and followed it with back-to-back fours to pull the equation down to 26 off 18. Chris Jordan was worse, serving up full tosses and half-volleys, and his England team-mate Buttler cracked him for consecutive sixes in the 18th over to leave Mumbai needing 10 off 12.
It isn't often that the home team is in unfamiliar territory. Before Wednesday's match, Royal Challengers had posted a total below 155 only six times in their nine years at the Chinnaswamy stadium, and had won on only one of those six occasions.
Kohli believed they were 20 runs short, and hadn't been in the game for the first 15 overs of the match. That is because he was caught at fly slip for 7, Gayle was caught at mid-off for 5, AB de Villiers top-edged Pandya to deep midwicket - the bowler sprinted to the fielder, Ambati Rayudu, with an expression of pure glee on his face and an hour later was holding his first Man-of-the-Match award in T20 cricket for a spell of 4-0-15-1. Watson biffed a six and a four but was run out for 15 by a direct hit from Rohit, who roared in triumph, leapt up, and pumped his fists. It was clear Mumbai wanted to erase the dismal memories of their last match with better ones from this match.
The only one who stood in their way was KL Rahul, who constructed his fourth fifty this season. He twisted his left ankle on 23, was struck on the glove by a McClenaghan bouncer on 34, but did not let either incident mar his approach. The pick-up shots flew off his bat. His pulls were authoritative. He hooks on instinct, and that shot needs a bit of sharpening. Nonetheless, 34 of his 68 unbeaten runs came in the Vs between fine leg and square leg and square leg and midwicket. Without his 53-run stand in 27 balls with Sachin Baby, Royal Challengers wouldn't have crossed 150.
Parthiv Patel was caught at slip off Aravind in the second over, but Rohit and Rayudu were fairly solid, even if they couldn't shut the opposition out. Pollard and Buttler could, and Mumbai sealed their sixth win of the season and broke into the top four again.
42nd match
Delhi Daredevils were without captain Zaheer Khan who missed his second game of the season because of a niggle. Chris Morris stepped up and unfurled cutters, fast yorkers, slower yorkers, and bouncers. Amit Mishra tested Sunrisers Hyderabad with googlies and claimed two wickets, both with seam-up balls, clocked at over 110kph. Nathan Coulter-Nile, playing his second game of the season, impressed in the end overs as the bowlers triggered Sunrisers' disintegration, after a fast start from David Warner. From 80 for 1 in the first ten overs, Sunrisers finished with 146 for 8. Warner later said that they were 20-30 runs short.
Quinton de Kock took charge of the chase. The cuts and the pick-up shots flew off his bat. He looked unstoppable until he was given out caught behind by umpire Marais Erasmus, despite no signs of a nick, after a prolonged appeal. De Kock slashed at a short, wide ball and a clicking noise came from his helmet falling onto the ground. When he was dismissed for 44 off 31, Daredevils needed 69 off 61 balls and Mustafizur Rahman had three overs left. Sunrisers had hope but the 21-year old Sanju Samson and 18-year old Rishabh Pant showed nous to end Sunrisers' four-match winning streak.
Daredevils' stand-in captain JP Duminy identified a "collective bowling performance" as the key to their sixth win in ten games. Mishra was introduced into the attack in the 11th over, after offspinner Jayant Yadav completed a tidy spell. Jayant gave the ball plenty of air in his three Powerplay overs. His reward, though, came off a quicker ball when Warner backed away outside leg, played inside the line, and had his leg stump pegged back for 46 off 30 balls. Mishra cranked up his pace in his second over, ending Dhawan's patient 34 with a 114kph seam-up ball. The fizzer accounted for Yuvraj Singh as well, as a leading edge carried to short fine leg. The shaky middle order was exposed.
Mohammed Shami made another dent when he pinned Moises Henriques lbw for a duck. The ball wasn't coming onto the bat and stroke-making was difficult. Kane Williamson aimed to force the pace before he was bowled by an inswinging Morris full toss for 27 off 24 balls. He capped his spell by kicking an inside edge, that rolled back up the pitch, onto the stumps to effect the run out of Bhuvneshwar Kumar for 1. Deepak Hooda stepped on his stumps off the bowling of Coulter-Nile in the 19th over. Naman Ojha was caught at square leg off a full toss in the last over. Daredevils picked up five wickets in the last five overs for 33.
The returning Mayank Agarwal was De Kock's fifth opening partner in Daredevils' last five games. He began brightly with a lofted drive to the left of mid-on for four. Agarwal was undone by the slowness of the pitch when he sliced Ashish Nehra to extra cover in the fourth over. An unfazed de Kock took Nehra for back-to-back boundaries in the same over before cutting Mustafizur for four.
De Kock's blows meant that Daredevils closed the Powerplay at 50 for 1. Henriques, however, dismissed Karun Nair and de Kock in the tenth over to tighten the chase. Samson and Pant settled it in Delhi's favour and took them to No.3. Samson got into his groove with a pick-up swat over midwicket while Pant launched Mustafizur over long-on. Three balls later, Pant whipped Mustafizur for four to reduce the equation to 39 off 36.
Pant maintained a stable base and went on to score 26 off Mustafizur from 13 balls, the most by any batsman against the Bangladesh seamer in a T20. That Mustafizur missed his yorkers marginally helped Pant's cause. Samson finished the chase with a pulled six and the night ended with Nehra warmly embracing Pant.
43rd match
Kings XI Punjab 127 for 3 beat Mumbai Indians 124 for 9 by seven wickets
Marcus Stoinis grabbed four wickets as Kings XI Punjab's bowling attack made use of a slow, grippy Visakhapatnam pitch with occasional low bounce to restrict Mumbai Indians to 124. Left with a target they could get to by sticking to cricketing shots, Kings XI coasted to a seven-wicket win with three overs remaining, courtesy half-centuries from M Vijay and Wriddhiman Saha.
The slowness and lowness of the pitch, allied to the discipline of Kings XI's bowlers, made it hard for Mumbai's batsmen to time the ball through gaps. Having to rely on muscle rather than pace onto the bat, they struck eight sixes and only five fours. Kings XI hit five fours in the Powerplay. Conditions may have eased out a touch for the side batting second, but the bigger difference was the bowling - Mumbai's quicks, particularly Mitchell McClenaghan, gave away a number of freebies. McClenaghan was often too short to M Vijay, and offered him ample width as well, while Tim Southee overpitched to Wriddhiman Saha, who drove sweetly between extra cover and mid-off.
Where Mumbai had ended their Powerplay on 21 for 2 - the lowest six-over score of the season - Kings XI ended theirs on 32 for 1. Not a massive difference, but significant given they knew they were chasing 125.
Mumbai needed wickets, and a half-chance - perhaps only a quarter-chance - evaporated in the seventh over when Harbhajan Singh found turn and bounce to leave Vijay yards out of his crease. But the ball beat Jos Buttler as well, spinning a long way to the wicketkeeper's left, and sped away for four byes.
Harbhajan tested the batsmen with turn and clever changes of pace, but that was never going to translate into a collapse given the batsmen weren't going to take undue risks against him. That approach also exposed Krunal Pandya's limitations as a spin bowler, and Saha and Vijay milked him easily, working him around and punishing the loose balls ruthlessly.
Saha fell soon after both batsmen had reached their half-centuries, dragging a slower bouncer from McClenaghan onto his stumps, and Glenn Maxwell chipped one to mid-on in the same over, but by then Kings XI only needed seven to win.
The team batting first had won both the previous matches at this venue and Rohit Sharma, the Mumbai captain, chose to bat, expecting the pitch to get "slower and slower". Rohit clipped the first ball of the match for four, as Sandeep Sharma drifted an inswinger too close to his pads, but there would be precious few hit-me balls from Kings XI's new-ball bowlers thereafter.
The two Sharmas - Mohit and Sandeep - and Stoinis bowled stump to stump, taking the pace off the ball, while the spinners bowled just short of a good length, denying the batsmen hits down the ground. KC Cariappa bowled legbreaks to the right-handers, offbreaks to the left-handers, and spun both varieties sharply.
The ball kept sticking in the pitch, and Mumbai struggled to put the ball away, with a couple of wickets tempering the amount of risk they could take in the early overs. Unmukt Chand chipped Mohit Sharma to mid-on in the second over, and Sandeep swung one through Ambati Rayudu's gate in the third.
Given the inconsistent bounce, sweeping Axar Patel's stump-to-stump line wasn't a high-percentage option, and Rohit was bowled when he got one to keep low in the ninth over. Nitish Rana showed why he is rated highly in this format, with three cleanly struck sixes, but only scored seven runs off the other 25 balls he faced. He was Stoinis' first victim, nicking a wide, full offcutter.
Mumbai's run rate was less than five an over when the 15th over began, and they had lost Jos Buttler as well, holing out when he was through a lofted drive too soon off Stoinis. Kieron Pollard and Krunal Pandya hit the spinners for four sixes in two overs to hint at a revival, but Stoinis dismissed both in the 17th, with Pollard another casualty of hitting across one that bounced less than expected.
Mohit and Sandeep have bowled splendidly at the death through the tournament, and they were under far less pressure now than usual, with Mumbai already seven down. Only 20 came off the last three overs, with Mumbai losing two more, and Kings XI knew they only needed to bat sensibly to keep their season alive, just about.
44th match
Royal Challengers Bangalore 248 for 3 beat Gujarat Lions 104 by 144 runs
When AB de Villiers or Virat Kohli brings the entire force of his batting might to bear on an opposition, the result is a particularly brutal form of carnage. When both do so in the same innings, the devastation is nuclear. Such was the case on Saturday afternoon at the Chinnaswamy Stadium. The two batsmen made near-perfect centuries to power Royal Challengers Bangalore to 248 and set up a 144-run victory - a record margin in the IPL -over the shell-shocked Gujarat Lions.
De Villiers' unbeaten 52-ball 129 and Kohli's 55-ball 109 decimated an increasingly feckless and indisciplined bowling attack; they required just 96 balls to put on a T20 record stand of 229. It was also only the second instance of two batsmen scoring centuries in the same innings in 5703 T20s. As the innings unfolded, a stream of boundaries became a raging river, with 15 fours and 20 sixes sinking the rickety boat on which the Lions bowlers were cowering.
The result was invaluable to Royal Challengers, for a defeat would have all but eliminated them from the playoffs. This margin of victory, however, ensured they stayed in contention and gave them the best net run-rate in the competition.
The onslaught came from nowhere. Brendon McCullum, standing in as Lions captain after Suresh Raina missed his first IPL match in nine years, opted to bowl and his opening bowlers got the side off to an excellent start. Praveen Kumar and Dhawal Kulkarni bowled with impressive control to tie down Royal Challengers' openers, with Kulkarni dismissing a scratchy Chris Gayle in the fourth over to reduce Royal Challengers to 19 for 1. Gayle had departed for his fifth single-digit score in as many matches, the innings was going nowhere, and the Lions fielders seemed to be buzzing.
But when spin was introduced in the fifth over, the game began to change. Chinaman bowler Shivil Kaushik delivered a string of half-trackers to allow Kohli and de Villiers to cut loose. Pravin Tambe, brought on for the next over, faced a similar fate and Royal Challengers were accelerating. In the scheme of things, the fact that those two overs conceded 23 runs turned out to be less relevant than the floodgates that they opened.
For much of the innings, de Villiers commanded centre-stage, unleashing his full repertoire of sweeps, lofts and drives. While the midwicket and long-on regions came in for a special peppering, no part of the ground was spared as the ball was regularly send soaring. Kohli played second-fiddle to de Villiers for the most part, but took on the starring role in the last three overs, pillaging 57 off his last 14 balls to bring up his third century of this IPL season - also a record - and lift his side to an imposing 248.
After having scored 81 off their first 11 overs, Royal Challengers smashed 167 off the last nine. In the midst of this whirlwind, Ravindra Jadeja was the only one of seven Lions bowlers to escape with an economy rate of under 10.
The hammering they had received and the enormity of the task before them weighed heavily on Lions' batsmen in their reply. The early loss of Dwayne Smith set the tone for a limp innings in which wickets fell at regular intervals and the run rate never approached the levels that were required. Chris Jordan and Yuzvendra Chahal made the most of the situation to bag figures of 4 for 11 and 3 for 19 respectively, before Sachin Baby took two in two to put the finishing touches on a royal spanking.
45th match
Kolkata Knight Riders 66 for 2 beat Rising Pune Supergiants 103 for 6 by eight wickets (D/L method)
A sharp bowling performance from Kolkata Knight Riders followed by Yusuf Pathan's blazing cameo ensured Rising Pune Supergiants, in their debut season, were the first team to be knocked out of IPL 2016. The eight-wicket victory, in a rain-hit game at Eden Gardens, meant that Knight Riders moved to second place on the points table.
It was a clinical performance from the hosts. Andre Russell and Morne Morkel thrived in the Powerplay, while the amount of turn Piyush Chawla and Sunil Narine got left the Supergiants batsmen dizzy in the middle overs. Heavy rain interrupted the game with MS Dhoni on 8 off 22 balls and his team at 103 for 6 in 17.4 overs.
More than two hours of play were lost, putting an end to the first innings and handing Knight Riders a target of 66 in nine overs. R Ashwin struck twice in the first over to give Supergiants a sliver of hope, but Yusuf muscled an unbeaten 37 off 18 balls to close the match out and set off on a celebratory sprint as purple balloons were sent into the sky. His job, though, was made considerably simpler by the Knight Riders bowlers.
After Supergiants had opted to bat, Russell struck in his second over, when he bowled Ajinkya Rahane off the inside edge for 2. It was his eighth wicket in Powerplays this season, which is only one shy of Dhawal Kulkarni and Bhuvneshwar Kumar, who top that list.
Morkel was impressive as well. He was able to generate extra bounce and should have had Usman Khawaja caught behind, but umpire Bruce Oxenford did not spot the nick. Khawaja could not make much of his reprieve though and fell to Shakib Al Hasan for 21.
George Bailey hinted at a revival when he punched Morkel through extra cover and lofted Shakib over the same region. The second hit helped Supergiants end the Powerplay at 45 for 2. With the field restrictions done, Knight Riders went to their spinners and a biting legbreak from Chawla had Bailey stumped for 33 off 27 balls. Chawla finished with 2 for 21 in four overs.
With the score at 74 for 4 in the 11th over, Supergiants were reliant on their captain for a strong finish and Gambhir gave Dhoni a very cold welcome from very close quarters. The Knight Riders captain placed himself at silly point, and added two slips and a short leg to pile on the pressure. By the end of his innings, Dhoni had been involved in a mix-up that cost Irfan Pathan his wicket and his strike-rate of 36.36 was the lowest by a batsman who had faced more than 20 balls in all IPLs.
Thisara Perera struck Chawla for a straight six in the 17th over to break a spell of 48 balls without a boundary, but was caught at long-off the very next ball. By the time Sunil Narine, who returned from a finger injury, came on to bowl the 18th, a drizzle had begun and its persistence had Knight Riders worried. They needed a win today to strengthen their chances of staying in the top four and rain had not been their friend in the past.
Both Gambhir and the head coach Jacques Kallis had recounted their trouble with wet weather in 2015, when one of their home matches was abandoned, which in turn contributed to their failure to make the playoffs.
However, the match resumed at 11.45 pm and offspinner R Ashwin found big turn even with the new ball. His second ball pitched on off stump, beat Robin Uthappa in flight, and had him stumped. Two balls later, Gambhir was trapped in front for a duck.
Yusuf turned the chase in the third over, the last one of the revised Powerplay. He clubbed R Ashwin for a brace of fours and sixes before targetting the other Ashwin. Yusuf drove M Ashwin over the covers and followed it with a powerful hit over long-off. By then, the equation was simple: 9 off 30. Knight Riders romped home with 24 balls to spare and Dhoni, for the first time in nine years of IPL, will not be involved in the knockouts.
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