IPL 2021: Match 5, KKR vs MI – Who Said What

The 5^th match of the Indian Premier League saw action between Kolkata Knight Riders and Mumbai Indians. MI won the game by 10 runs owing to their tight death bowling. Winning the toss, KKR invited Rohit Sharma and company to bat first. Quinton de Kock couldn’t shine for MI and went early but Sharma made sure to pitch in with his essential effort (43 off 32). It was Suryakumar Yadav yet again who brought his A-game for the team as he played a terrific knock of 56 off 36.

Rahul Chahar was declared as the player of the match for his classy bowling and picking up maximum wickets for his team. The middle order and the lower middle order of MI failed and it only meant that they finished on a mediocre total of 152 runs. It was Andre Russell who got under the skin of MI batters as he sent five of them within two overs.

Trent Boult turned tables for MI at the end

Chasing the target, Nitish Rana and Shubman got off to a flying start as they played a vital knock of 57 and 33 runs, respectively. However, what followed next was an absolute collapse for the Kolkata side as none of the batsmen could even touch the double-digit. Chahar bagged four wickets for his team while Trent Boult got the two essential ones towards the end.

Losing skipper, Eoin Morgan said-

‘Yes, disappointing (to lose). Played some really good cricket for most parts of the game, we looked comfortable in the chase, but they are a strong team, came back well and sad that it didn’t work out for us. Made a few mistakes, will need to sort it out. A perfect game needs to be bold, it came to cost us in the last 10 overs of the game (not being bold enough to finish off the chase). We needed to bat around and complete the chase – not quite sure what happened (speaking if the pitch tended to go slow in the second innings), in the games that have been played so far, barring AB de Villiers in the chase (in the RCB v MI game), that seems to be telling a tale (of teams struggling in the run-chase). We put ourselves in a good position to win today, but then not to win, that’s something we need to take care of.’

Winning skipper, Rohit Sharma said-

Was a great fightback, excellent fightback by each one of them. You don’t see a game like this often. Lots of confidence from this game and we move forward. KKR batted brilliantly in the powerplay. Rahul came and got us crucial wickets in the middle;. Krunal bowling those overs at the end was vital as well. It was a complete team effort and credit to all the bowlers. As batters you need to carry on. The trend in Chennai is you can’t hit from ball one. You have to plan before you go into bat. We were 15-20 runs short. Should have batted well at the fag end. We need to understand how we need to bat at the death but I don’t want to take anything away from the boys. SKY has carried his form well. He plays fearless and it’s a positive sign for us in the first few overs. We need a guy there to do that. We have done the finishing part well as a team, just that we need to understand the surfaces here and adapt.

Player of the match, Rahul Chahar said-

There was pressure when they started well and a spinner had to pull it back. My strength is to turn it at pace. I enjoyed Tripathi’s wicket. I deliberately tried to bowl a flipper to Rana knowing it’s my last ball of the spell. Rohit gives me a lot of confidence and the management too is very supportive.