MI steamroll Knight Riders

Mumbai Indians produced a brilliant bowling and fielding performance after Ishan Kishan’s batting pyrotechnics as they thrashed Kolkata Knight Riders by 102 runs to keep themselves in the hunt for a play-offs berth in the Indian Premier League here on Wednesday.

Sent into bat at the Eden Gardens, defending champions MI scored an imposing 210 for six, riding on 19-year-old Kishan’s 21-ball 62, studded with five fours and six sixes, and then bowled KKR out for 108 in 18.1 overs.

Krunal Pandya and his brother Hardik returned with figures of 2/12 and 2/16 respectively while all the other five MI bowlers took a wicket each.

After today’s match, their third on the trot, MI jumped to fourth spot with 10 points from 11 matches. KKR also have the same 10 points from 11 matches but they are below MI at fifth on inferior net run rate.

Chris Lynn and Nitish Rana top-scored with 21 each while all the other KKR batsmen came a cropper. Their highest partnership was 31 between Lynn and Uthappa (14) for the second wicket.

KKR made a disastrous start to their run chase as Sunil Narine (4) was out in the second ball, top-edging a Mitchell McClenaghan short delivery to Krunal Pandya. Lynn and Uthappa was going strong for some time. But a horrible mixed up in the fourth over led to Lynn being run out as the home side were reduced to 32 for two.

Uthappa was the third batsman to go as he hit straight to Suryakumar Yadav at deep mid-wicket off a Mayank Markande delivery in the seventh over and Andrew Russell followed suit the next over, after being deceived by a Hardik Pandya slow delivery.

KKR were in deep trouble by then with half of their batting line up gone in the ninth over for just 67 runs. Captain Dinesh Karthik (5) could not extricate his side and he was run out in the 10th over.

McClenaghan then held on to a brilliant running catch to dismiss Rana the next ball and the match was as good as over for KKR by then.

Earlier, Ishan smashed a 17-ball half-century as MI overcame a slow start to post an imposing 210/6.

Ishan tore apart KKR bowling, especially Kuldeep Yadav who was clobbered for four consecutive sixes, en route to his 21-ball 62 (5x4, 6x6).

The momentum shifted in favour of MI in the 14th over that yielded 25 runs with Ishan making a mockery of chinaman Kuldeep’s bowling. The bulk of Mumbai’s runs -- 148 -- came from boundaries.

First, Ishan swept Kuldeep high over deep square leg, then smashed across the line, followed by stepping out to hit the bowler over long on to get to his fifty -- the joint second fastest of the season with Sunil Narine.

Ishan ended the over with a helicopter shot that would surely make his Ranchi mentor MS Dhoni smile as MI scored 73 runs in five middle overs to reach to 145/3 in 15 overs from being a modest 72/2 midway into their innings.

After Ishan, it was Cutting show as he hit the first three balls of the final over for a six each en route to his nine-ball 24 (1x4, 3x6) as MI finished on a high with 22 runs in the final over bowled by Piyush Chawla.