IPL 10: Match 7, Who Said What: Mumbai Indians v Kolkata Knight Riders

In yet another epic encounter in IPL which went down to the wire, Mumbai Indians held their nerves to win their fixture against the visitors Kolkata Knight Riders by 4 wickets. Earlier tonight, Rohit Sharma won the toss and put Gambhir’s team into bat. In an attempt to repeat their heroics at Rajkot, Lynn and Gambhir gave a flying start to their innings before Krunal struck twice in the same over to change the balance of the game. He went on to take three wickets in his four overs and conceded only 24 runs at an unbelievable economy of 6. With his team tottering at 87-4, Manish Pandey took it upon himself to post a competitive total of 178. Pandey scored a fluent 47-ball 81 at a strike rate of 172.34 which comprised of 5 maximums and five fours.

Mumbai’s innings started off with a brisk opening partnership between Parthiv and Buttler, who threatened to end the match before 20 overs. However, a flurry of wickets pressurised the middle order batsmen of Mumbai Indians. The home team was reduced to 119 for 5 after losing Pollard in the 17th over. However, the match saw one of the greatest turnarounds in the history of IPL cricket. With 60 needed off 23 balls, both Pandya and Nitish Rana stepped up to the occasion and helped their side to a 4 wicket win over the Knight Riders. Man of the match, Rana scored his half-century off just 28 balls while Pandya hit the winning blow by scoring a 11-ball 29*.

Rohit Sharma

Mumbai Indians skipper applauded the efforts of Hardik Pandya and Nitish Rana who pulled off the greatest heist in IPL cricket. The captain stated that the Mumbai Indians squad always backs the players to for runs. However, he concluded by saying that the job is not done yet and moving forward they would not take anything for granted.

Winning the game was important, I know it was a close finish. But that’s what Mumbai Indians are known for. Important win moving forward. Here at Wankhede, we back players to go for the runs. It’s such a good wicket to bat on. Both, Nitish and Hardik, have been batting very well. They held their nerve in the end and I’m glad to end on a winning note. Very important moving forward for any team to have those young players batting well. Like I said, job not yet done. It’s just the second game. But it feels great to be on the winning side. There’s always room for improvement. You move forward as a group. We don’t want to take anything for granted. That’s what we’ll be doing in the next few games. We are aware of the things we didn’t do well and will go back to the drawing board.

Gautam Gambhir

Kolkata Knight Riders captain believed that the score they put on the board was enough to defend against the Mumbai Indians lineup had they latched on to important catches and saved important boundaries. He also emphasized on the fact that Wankhede is a good chasing ground especially with the dew around at night. But Gambhir believed that the match was lost in the last three overs.

The last three overs we put a good score on the board and 179 was defendable. Hardik played an unbelievable innings and so did Nitish. But had we taken the catch, things would have been different. We do back our bowlers to do the job; Trent (Boult) and Chris (Woakes) are experienced campaigners. Anything would have happened if we had taken the catch or had Surya stopped the four. It is a good chasing ground and there was dew around. The spinners were finding it difficult to grip the ball, but we could have won it had it not been for the last three overs. I still do not have any update on Lynn’s injury.

Mumbai will host the in-form Sunrisers Hyderabad next on April 12th, while Kolkata will play their first home match against a confident Kings XI Punjab on April 13th