IPL IPL 2024: KKR become first team to confirm play-off ticket after beating MI by 18 runs
Kolkata/IBNS: Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) have become the first team to qualify for the play-offs in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024 after beating Mumbai Indians (MI) by 18 runs in rain-affected 16-over contest at the Eden Gardens here on Saturday (May 11).
KKR's Andre Russell, Varun Chakaravarthy and Harshit Rana bowled extremely well to restrict Mumbai batting line-up to 139/8 in 16 overs, defending 157 runs. All these Knight bowlers took 2 wickets each.
Sunil Narine got another wicket for KKR.
Image by Avishek Mitra/IBNS
Earlier, Mumbai skipper Hardik Pandya won the toss and elected to bowl first against KKR in the rain-hit game, which was reduced to a 16-over per-side match.
Batting first, KKR set a target of 158 runs for MI.
KKR's both openers had a bad day today as Phil Salt scored only 6 runs off 5 balls, and Sunil Narine departed for a golden duck after being bowled by Jasprit Bumrah in the 2nd over.
Shreyas Iyer again failed to make a two-digit score as he was dismissed after scoring 7 off 10 balls.
Image by Avishek Mitra/IBNS
However, Venkatesh Iyer's 42 off 21, Nitish Rana's 33 off 23, and the middle-order and tailend batting by Russell (24 off 14), Rinku Singh (20 off 12) and Ramandeep Singh (17 off 8) helped KKR to reach the total of 157 runs for the loss of 7 wickets in 16 overs.
For Mumbai, Jasprit Bumrah and Piyush Chawla took 2 wickets each, while Thushara and Anshul Kamboj got one wicket each.
Chasing 158, Mumbai had a good start as its score reached 62-0 in 6 overs with its opener Ishan Kishan scoring 40 off 22 balls.
Image by Avishek Mitra/IBNS
After Ishan Kishan's dismissal, Mumbai lost four crucial wickets of Rohit Sharma (19 off 24), Surya Kumar Yadav (11 off 14), skipper Hardik Pandya (2 off 4) and Tim David (0 off 3), in just 25 runs.
Tilak Verma's (32* off 17) fight went in vain as Mumbai's innings ended at 139 for the loss of 8 wickets in 16 overs.
KKR's Varun Chakaravarthy picked up the player of the match award.
Image by Avishek Mitra/IBNS
After the victory, KKR, with 18 points in 12 matches, qualified for the play-offs of this season's IPL, while Mumbai Indians have already been eliminated from the contest.
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