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Abu Dhabi: Kolkata beat defending champion Mumbai by 41 runs in season-opener of IPL-7 at Sheikh Zayed Stadium, Abu Dhabi on Wednesday.
Jacques Kallis proved his all-round worth again a few months after his international retirement, while the bowling strength of Kolkata Knight Riders led by Morne Morkel and Sunil Narine, helped Gautam Gambhir’s team thump defending champions Mumbai Indians by 41 runs.
Mumbai Indians never got going in their run chase, after Kallis and Manish Pandey’s half-centuries had set the foundation for Kolkata’s 163 for 5, in the face of some disciplined new ball bowling by Morkel.
Aditya Tare found the going comparatively easier when facing Vinay Kumar as compared to Morkel at the start of Mumbai’s run chase. Morkel though had Michael Hussey, playing his first match for Mumbai, under his spell as ‘Mr Cricket’ wasn’t able to score a run from the eight deliveries he faced off him.
Tare hit Sunil Narine’s (4-20) second ball for a six, but the West Indies spinner struck with his fourth delivery in IPL-7 when he knocked back Hussey’s (3 from 13 deliveries) middle stump. Shakib Al Hasan then caught Tare (24) off his own bowling as Mumbai slipped to 40 for 2 in the eighth over, and their tough task was made more difficult by Kallis and Shakib, who did an excellent job of choking the runs in the middle overs, as the asking rate kept climbing.
Returning for his second spell, Morkel (4-0-16-1) conceded only three runs in his third over and though Mumbai captain Rohit Sharma hit the first ball of his fourth over for a six over deep square leg, the lanky Proteas bowler had him caught by Kallis; and with his last two deliveries in the match, he made life uncomfortable for the big-hitting Kieron Pollard.
Ambati Rayudu (48 from 40 balls) had his struggles in the middle and any remote hope that Mumbai had of chasing down the target evaporated when Robin Uthappa stumped him off Narine’s bowling in the 17th over. Narine returned to clean bowl Corey Anderson and Harbhajan Singh in the 19th over as his guile proved too much for the Mumbai batsmen.
Earlier, Kallis looked rusty for a large part of his 46-ball 72 as he struggled to rotate the strike and even unsuccessfully tried to play unorthodox shots that he was not known for during his legendary career. Kallis also survived a couple of chances - when on 25, he could have been run out if Sharma’s direct throw from covers had hit the wickets; and when he was on 34, Lasith Malinga dropped a sitter at short fine leg off Pollard’s bowling.
This was the cue for Kallis, who had faced 32 deliveries to scratch his way to 35, to step on the accelerator as his next 37 runs came off only 14 balls. He started the rampage in the 15th over bowled by Pragyan Ojha, as he hit two massive sixes and a boundary as the spinner conceded 20 runs; and the second of those sixes brought up Kallis’ half-century off 37 balls. Kallis then hit a couple of boundaries off Pollard, with Pandey getting into the act as well.
Pandey came to the middle in the second over after a Malinga yorker ended Gambhir’s nightmare in the middle, as Kolkata’s captain (0 from 8 balls) was hardly able to put bat to ball during his jittery stay. Gambhir would have hoped for a better start to the tournament as he looks to bat himself back into the Indian selectors’ minds. Pandey hit six boundaries and two sixes in his 53-ball 64, and added 131 runs in 15.2 overs with Kallis for the second wicket, before being clean bowled by another Malinga yorker. Pandey’s knock was not the best to watch as he struggled to rotate the strike, find the gaps in the field and impose himself on the opposition; but it was an effective one for his team.
Mumbai Indians pulled things back towards the end of Kolkata Knight Riders’ innings, as Zaheer Khan dismissed Uthappa in the 18th over, before Malinga (4-23) accounted for Kallis and Shakib in the 19th over. Anderson, deemed fit to play after suffering a finger injury in the World T20, took a sensational running low catch at long-off to end Kallis’ knock, just when it appeared the South African great would take the game away from Mumbai Indians. Kallis walked after Anderson responded positively to his query if it was a clean catch.
Suryakumar Yadav hit three boundaries in the last over of the innings bowled by Anderson (3-0-33-0) to help Knight Riders get past 160, and this total proved too much for the defending champions to overhaul.
Earlier, Kolkata captain Gautam Gambhir wins the toss and elects to bat..
Teams:
Mumbai - Rohit Sharma (Capt.), Michael Hussey, Aditya Tare (wk), Ambati Rayudu, Chidhambaram Gautam, Kieron Pollard, Corey Anderson, Harbhajan Singh, Lasith Malinga, Zaheer Khan, Pragyan Ojha
Kolkata - Gautam Gambhir (Capt.), Jacques Kallis, Manish Pandey, Robin Uthappa (wk), Shakib Al Hasan, Yusuf Pathan, Suryakumar Yadav, Piyush Chawla, Vinay Kumar, Sunil Narine, Morne Morkel
Brief scores
Kolkata - 163/5 (Kallis 72, Pandey 64, Malinga 4-23)
Mumbai - 122/7 (Rayudu 48, Narine 4-20)
Result - Kolkata won by 41 runs
Points - Kolkata 2, Mumbai 0
