KKR’s Coach Gautam Gambhir and MI’s Rohit Sharma during the practice session ahead of IPL game between KKR and Mumbai Indians at Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai on Thursday.
| Photo Credit: EMMANUAL YOGINI

India captain and Mumbai Indians opener Rohit Sharma was forced to play as an impact sub in the IPL clash against Kolkata Knight Riders due to a “mild back stiffness”, said leg-spinner Piyush Chawla.

Playing as an impact sub, Rohit managed just 11 runs in 12 balls in the second innings during their 24-run loss against KKR, which has nearly put the five-time champions out of the IPL this year.

“He just had a mild back stiffness so it was just a precautionary thing,” Chawla told the media after the match here at the Wankhede Stadium.

Mumbai’s defeat was their eighth in 11 matches, essentially shutting the doors on the Hardik Pandya-led side and Chawla too conceded that it is only “pride” that they are left with to play for.

“For the pride and the reputation, because sometimes when you enter on the field, you don’t think whether you are going to qualify or you are not going to qualify,” he said.

“You have to play for your name and that’s what we are playing for,” he added.

Chawla pointed MI’s inability to attain momentum at any stage in this IPL as the reason behind their poor performance.

“You must have often heard about that T20 is all about momentum and just that we didn’t get that momentum going this season and it can happen to any team,” he said.

“It’s not like it’s happening to us for the first time or any other team for the second time. It can happen to anyone and it’s just that that momentum was not our way.”

The 35-year-old Chawla became IPL’s second leading wicket-taker when he went past Dwayne Bravo on Friday to take 184 wickets.

“It has been a beautiful journey because IPL started 17 years back and at that time nobody gave that much preference to the spinners, but now if you see that in top few wicket takers in India, especially all the spinners, Ashwin, Yuzhi, myself (are there), so it’s a good feeling,” he said.

Chawla also praised Manish Pandey for delivering in a pressure situation while playing his first game this season. Pandey (42) added 83 runs for the sixth wicket with Venkatesh Iyer (70) as KKR posted 169 allout in 19.5 overs.

“It was a good partnership and credit has to go to them because they batted beautifully. Well, T20 is something in which experience plays a big role, (which is) what we saw today.

“When Manish walked in, maybe if somebody walks in who must have played few games, he would have panicked that runs are not coming.

“But he read the situation and the way he handled the situation because if you see in starting, he was hardly going at run a ball. But later on, he knew that he has to stand there with Venky.”

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| Photo Credit: PTI

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IPL-17: MI vs KKR | Venkatesh and Pandey’s partnership proves the difference as Knight Riders edge Mumbai Indians

Dominate the middle overs and win the match. That seems to be the flavour of the Indian Premier League this season. The same was on display at the Wankhede Stadium on Friday as the Kolkata Knight Riders clinched a convincing win despite having its back to the wall early on in the game.

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Dominate the middle overs and win the match. That seems to be the flavour of the Indian Premier League this season. The same was on display at the Wankhede Stadium on Friday as the Kolkata Knight Riders clinched a convincing win despite having its back to the wall early on in the game.

As a result, in a game influenced heavily by bowling units with all 20 wickets falling on the night, it was the 83-run association between Venkatesh Iyer and Manish Pandey (Impact Player) in the middle overs of the first innings that turned out to be the difference between Knight Riders and host Mumbai Indians.

Had it not been for the duo’s partnership, Knight Riders – reeling at 57 for five – would have struggled to put on the 169 runs it did before being bowled out in the last over.

Suryakumar Yadav then tried his best to take a cue from Venkatesh but thanks to KKR’s spin duo of Varun Chakaravarthy and Sunil Narine controlling the middle overs, Suryakumar perished even before MI got close to the finish line.

As a result, KKR emerged as a clear second in the standings while MI’s campaign is all but over after its eighth loss of the season.

Venkatesh carried on from his sterling hundred at the same venue last season to notch up his fourth fifty-plus score in five outings against MI. He found an ally in veteran Pandey who kept the scoreboard flowing.

In the nine-over period from the seventh till the 15th over, KKR added 75 runs for the loss of Rinku Singh, who top-edged back to Piyush Chawla off the first ball after the PowerPlay. MI lost three wickets while adding 73 runs in the same period. The additional wickets proved to be the difference.

Once Suryakumar’s skier off Andre Russell was pouched by Phil Salt, the game was all but over.

Just like Nuwan Thushara in the PowerPlay and Jasprit Bumrah at the death in the first essay, Mitchell Starc targeted the stumps to finish the game off in a hurry.

SCOREBOARD

KOLKATA KNIGHT RIDERS

Phil Salt c Tilak b Thushara 5 (3b, 1×4), Sunil Narine b Hardik 8 (8b, 1×6), Angkrish Raghuvanshi c Suryakumar b Thushara 13 (6b, 2×6), Shreyas Iyer c David b Thushara 6 (4b, 1×4), Venkatesh Iyer b Bumrah 70 (52b, 6×4, 3×6), Rinku Singh c & b Chawla 9 (8b, 2×4), Manish Pandey (Impact Player in place of Raghuvanshi) c sub (Brevis) b Hardik 42 (31b, 2×4, 2×6), Andre Russell (run out) 7 (2b, 1×6), Ramandeep Singh c Coetzee b Bumrah 2 (4b), Mitchell Starc b Bumrah 0 (2b), Vaibhav Arora (not out) 0; Extras (lb-1, nb-1, w-5): 7; Total (in 19.5 overs): 169.

FALL OF WICKETS

1-7 (Salt, 0.4 overs), 2-22 (Raghuvanshi, 2.2), 3-28 (Shreyas, 2.6), 4-43 (Narine, 4.2), 5-57 (Rinku, 6.1), 6-140 (Pandey, 16.2), 7-153 (Russell, 16.6), 8-155 (Ramandeep, 17.4), 9-155 (Starc, 17.6).

MUMBAI INDIANS BOWLING

Thushara 4-0-42-3, Bumrah 3.5-0-18-3, Coetzee 2-0-24-0, Hardik 4-0-44-2, Dhir 3-0-25-0, Chawla 3-0-15-1.

MUMBAI INDIANS

Ishan Kishan b Starc 13 (7b, 1×4, 1×6), Rohit Sharma (Impact Player in place of Thushara) c Pandey b Narine 11 (12b, 1×6), Naman Dhir b Varun 11 (11b, 2×4), Suryakumar Yadav c Salt b Russell 56 (35b, 6×4, 2×6), Tilak Varma c Narine b Varun 4 (6b), Nehal Wadhera b Narine 6 (11b, 1×4), Hardik Pandya c Pandey b Russell 1 (3b), Tim David c Shreyas b Starc 24 (20b, 1×4, 1×6), Gerald Coetzee b Starc 8 (7b, 1×6), Piyush Chawla c Narine b Starc 0 (1b), Jasprit Bumrah (not out) 1 (1b); Extras (lb-3, nb-1, w-6): 10; Total (in 18.5 overs): 145.

FALL OF WICKETS

1-16 (Kishan, 1.4), 2-38 (Dhir, 4.1), 3-46 (Rohit, 5.5), 4-61 (Tilak, 8.4), 5-70 (Wadhera, 10.5), 6-71 (Hardik, 11.2), 7-120 (Suryakumar, 15.3), 8-144 (David, 18.2), 9-144 (Chawla, 18.3).

KNIGHT RIDERS BOWLING

Arora 3-0-35-0, Starc 3.5-0-33-4, Varun 4-0-22-2, Narine 4-0-22-2, Russell 4-0-30-2.

Toss: Mumbai Indians.

PoM: Venkatesh.

KKR won by 24 runs.

MI 119 for six

MI was 119/6 in 15 overs with Suryakumar (56) and David (9) batting. Kishan (13), Rohit (11), Dhir (11), Tilak (4), Wadhera (6), and Hardik (1) were dismissed