Kolkata Knight Riders finally ended their streak of losses as they outplayed Pune Warriors India by 46 runs at Subrata Roy Sahara Stadium on Thursday. Riding on the knocks of Gautam Gambhir and Ryan ten Doeschate, KKR went onto score 152 runs in their quota of 20 overs and it was followed by some brilliant bowling of Jacques Kallis, Lakshmipathy Balaji and Sunil Narine which helped them to seal a comfortable win against the Pune warriors India.
Here we bring to you the hits and flops from the match between Pune Warriors India (PWI) and Kolkata Knight Riders.
HITS
Gautam Gambhir: Gambhir played another match-winning innings for KKR as he scored 50 runs off 44 balls. He was aggressive from the very beginning of his innings and made the good use of his feet. He was not looking good in past few matches but came back well against Pune Warriors to score a hal century.
Angelo Mathews: Mathews played a superb knock of 40 runs off 28 balls which was studded with four sixes. Though he didn’t have a great day with the ball and was smashed for 31 runs in his four overs. His inconsistency has hurt PWI in recent games quite badly.
Sunil Narine: Narine was sensational with the ball as he bagged two wickets by giving away just 12 runs in his four overs. He kept bowling in the right channel with attacking line and kept beating the batsmen consistently.
Lakshmipathy Balaji: Balaji was outstanding with the ball as he ended up with a figure of 3/19 in his 3.3 overs. He picked up the crucial wicket of Yuvraj Singh and helped KKR to wrap up the innings of Pune Warriors in the final overs.
Bhuvneshwar Kumar: Bhuvneshwar was once again brilliant with the ball as he picked up three wickets at very crucial time and helped Pune to restrict KKR to a modest total of 152.
Ryan Ten Doeschate: His lusty blows in the final overs brought KKR back into the game as he played a blistering cameo of 31 runs off 21 balls and took KKR to a stiff total of 152 in their 20 overs.
FLOPS
Aaron Finch: Finch was again a disappointment with the bat as he was bowled by Jacques Kallis for just five runs. He got a life in the very same over when he was not given out by third umpire when Kallis appealed for a run out.
Manvinder Bisla: Bisla departed after scoring just 12 runs off 13 balls. He was struggling to read the line of the bowlers and was beaten quite often. He was dismissed by Bhuvneshwar who got him stumped.
Yuvraj Singh: Yuvraj Singh once again turned out to be a failure as he went after contributing just one run. Yuvraj has been a poor show with the bat in this edition of IPL.
Yusuf Pathan: Pathan had another disappointing outing with the bat as he was dismissed for just three runs. He has not yet scored a half-century for KKR since he has been included in their squad and this kind of form is doing no good to his reputation of being a big-hitter.
Krishnakant Upadhyay: Upadhyay once again turned out to be a disaster for Pune warriors as he gave away 19 runs in his two overs. He does not seem to have variation in his pace or even line and length and has paid the price for that quite heavily.
Eoin Morgan: Morgan once again failed to deliver under the pressure as he got out after scoring run-a-ball 15. He has been failing quite consistently since last few matches and has not responded well under the pressure which has brought much pressure to the KKR’s middle order.
Wayne Parnell: Parnell was smacked all over the park throughout his four overs. He gave away 40 runs in his four overs and turned out to be the worst bowler of the match.
By Amit Chopra
Indian Sports News Network
