Bad night for the Knights; Mumbai Indians beat Kolkata Knight Riders by 49 runs

Mumbai Indians marked their first win of the season, beating Kolkata Knight Riders by 49 runs in the fifth match of IPL 2020 on Wednesday.

Following on Mumbai’s 196-run target, Kolkata were only able to fetch 146 with the loss of nine wickets in their 20 overs. It was a slow start for the Knights and the starting became even more worse as their openers Shubman Gill (7) and Sunil Narine (9) went cheaply.

After that, Dinesh Karthik (30) and Nitish Rana (24), who then teamed up at the crease, also failed to score at the required run rate. Kolkata’s scoreboard was just 70 after 10 overs. Even though Pat Cummins played a little cameo towards the end, that wasn’t enough for the chasing team.

Mumbai were strong in all their departments and put out an all round performance as captain Rohit Sharma (80) lead the batting side along with a supporting performance by Suryakumar Yadav (47) made Mumbai reach a total of 195 in 20 overs.

Mumbai’s bowling department also contributed well as Trent Boult, James Pattinson, Jasprit Bumrah and Rahul Chahar took 2 wickets each.

Kiron Pollard, who was playing his 150th match for the Mumbai Indians, took the wicket of Nitish Rana.

Rohit Sharma was awarded Man of the Match for his fantastic knock. “It was all about how we executed our plans today, we were in good positions and it was all about being ruthless. The wicket was good and dew was coming down. I back myself to play the pull shots and have practiced quite a bit. Pretty happy with the performance of my squad,” he said in the post match presentation.