The Kolkata Knight Riders were effectively knocked out of IPL 2013 on Tuesday when they lost by 65 runs to a rampant Mumbai Indians team at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai.
Not even a brief disruption due to a floodlight failure in the Mumbai innings could break their speed, as Man of the Match Sachin Tendulkar and Dwayne Smith laid the foundation for a total of 170-6, more than adequately defended by some super bowling from Mitchell Johnson and Harbhajan Singh.
Facing a testing target of 171, Kolkata got off to the worst start as Gautam Gambhir departed in the first over, overestimating Johnson’s swing and playing on to the fourth ball of the innings.
Jacques Kallis, Yusuf Pathan and Debabrata Das all made starts, but Kallis’s 24 was the highest score in a disappointing effort.
Johnson was in charge from the start, taking 1-12 in his opening spell of three overs, and a wicket at the death gave him a superb analysis of 2-13. Harbhajan Singh also kept it tight and was rewarded with 3-27.
Earlier Mumbai batted solidly after winning the toss. A floodlight failure interrupted the innings at the first strategic time-out with the home batsmen on 63-0 after nine overs.
Play resumed without any loss of overs. Tendulkar finished with 48 off 28 balls and Smith a more pedestrian 47, but the only other batsman to make a mark was Dinesh Karthik with an unbeaten 34 off just 18 balls.
Lakshmipathy Balaji made an excellent start, going for just seven in his opening burst of three overs, but did not get to complete his spell.
Ryan McLaren had a horrid night as he finished with 2-60. Despite troubling Tendulkar, he went for five successive boundaries in his second over. He came back with two quick wickets, but was punished for 25 in the final over of the innings.
It might have been a bit different, as Karthik was dropped early on in that over, but McLaren could blame no-one else for bowling five wides with what should have been the final ball, and the last ball was a full toss spanked into the crowd by Johnson.
Mumbai’s 65-run margin of victory has seen them leapfrog the Rajasthan Royals and go back into second place, but Kolkata remain seventh and now seem to be out of the running for the play-offs.
MUMBAI INDIANS: DR Smith, SR Tendulkar, KD Karthik†, RG Sharma*, KA Pollard, AT Rayudu, Harbhajan Singh, MG Johnson, SL Malinga, PP Ojha, AN Ahmed
KOLKATA KNIGHT RIDERS: MS Bisla†, G Gambhir*, YK Pathan, JH Kallis, EJG Morgan, DB Das, R Bhatia, R McLaren, Iqbal Abdulla, SP Narine, L Balaji