Kolkata: Gautam Gambhir won the toss and elected to field first at Eden Gardens in a pitch which had some assistance for the bowlers. It was an important match for KKR as a win in this match will almost assure them a spot in the play-offs with a couple of matches still to go. CSK on the other hand have already made it to the play-offs but the match was also important to them in the context of whether leading the table or coming second.

Pat Cummins was making his debut for KKR and he struck in his very first over by getting rid of the dangerous Smith and from there on KKR had put the brakes on the scoring. Suresh Raina played well for his 65 runs but got out in the wrong time and the innings never really took off as expected from a batting line-up boasting the likes of Smith, Dhoni and Raina.

McCullum got off to a start and so was Faf du Plusis but failed to convert it to a big score and it was left to the likes of Dhoni and Jadeja to get them to a decent score. Dhoni and Jadeja did their bit by taking CSK to a competitive total of 154 runs in their allotted 20 overs.

KKR had to get off to a good start in order to take the pressure off the middle order and Gautam Gambhir and Robin Uthappa did exactly that although bulk of the scoring was done by Uthappa. CSK were poor in the field as they dropped Uthappa twice in the match, once by Ashwin which was a sitter and once by Raina in the slips.

By the time KKR lost their first wicket the score was already 64 in 7 overs and the required run-rate was well within reach as it became more and more difficult for CSK to come back in the match. At the end Shakib played a brilliant cameo to finish things off by remaining not out on 46 while the top scorer was Robin Uthappa who scored 67 off 39 balls as KKR won the match by 8 wickets with 2 overs to go.

By ISN