Twitter Reactions: Fearless KKR pummel Mumbai Indians in Abu Dhabi, chase down 156 in 15.1 overs

22-6. This was the head to head record in favour of Mumbai Indians against Kolkata Knight Riders ahead of the game on Thursday. Well, clearly not even the best of KKR fans are confident of their team when they face the five-time champions. But their team was playing on a different level on the day. After the bowlers pulled back the things at the fag end of the innings, their batsmen, especially top three, just blew MI away on the day.

Chasing 156, KKR needed a good start and once again, their surprise package, Venkatesh Iyer got them off to a flyer smashing the likes of Trent Boult and Adam Milne with disdain. Jasprit Bumrah had to be introduced early into the attack and the man didn’t disappoint his skipper. Bumrah sent back Shubman Gill but there was no respite for Rohit Sharma and his troops.

Rahul Tripathi walked out to bat and played some fearless cricket. Iyer, at the other end, kept clearing the in-field and churned out boundaries in the powerplay. The man batted so well that he got to his fifty off just 25 balls, the fastest for KKR against MI in all IPL seasons. Tripathi was also batting like a dream at the same time taking on the opposition bowlers at will.

The duo added 88 runs non-chalantly to leave MI out of clue. The pitch probably got better to bat on but nobody expected that kind of an assault. Venkatesh Iyer became Bumrah’s second victim but that made little difference to KKR as the job was almost done by then. Tripathi continued to play his shots to help his team get over the line in just 15 overs handing a thumping loss to MI.

He remained unbeaten on 74 while Nitish Rana didn’t have to do much with his partner smacking the ball at will. KKR, with this win, climbed to the fourth win thanks to their brilliant NRR and will be looking to build on this momentum. MI, on the other hand, have to pull up their socks now with things going out of hands slowly.

De Kock scores fifty but MI lose momentum in the end

Earlier in the day, MI got off to a superb start courtesy Rohit Sharma and Quinton de Kock. They weathered the spin bowling barrage with some smart batting keeping the likes of Sunil Narine and Varun Chakravarthy at bay. The introduction of Lockie Ferguson and Prasidh Krishna didn’t change much either as they were taken for more than 10 runs in their respective opening overs.

The 78-run over was finally broken by Narine as Rohit got caught in the deep. This is when things began to change for KKR with Suryakumar Yadav also going back soon. At the other end, De Kock played attractive strokes when the opening stand was in progress. But the heat and humidity possibly got to him it seems as his shots waned off in the second half of the innings.

He scored a fifty but got out at the wrong time and despite best efforts from Kieron Pollard at the death, MI could only reach 155 runs in their 20 overs. Lockie Ferguson kept the opposition batsmen at bay in the last few overs to restrict them. It was a brilliant effort from KKR bowlers eventually and the hard work from them paid off.

Here’s how Twitter reacted: