Twitter Reactions: Quinton de Kock's unbeaten 78-run blitzkrieg helps MI register their 21st win over KKR

What happens to Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) when they face the Mumbai Indians? Coming into the game on Friday, the head to head battle read 20-6 in favour of the four-time champions. The domination from the Rohit Sharma-led MI continued in Abu Dhabi as well and it seemed as if KKR never arrived at the venue. It was a completely off-day at the office for them even as MI comfortably climbed to the top of the points table.

Earlier, after opting to bat first, everything went haywire for KKR from the word go. Suryakumar Yadav took a blinder to send back Rahul Tripathi in the third over. KKR never recovered from the early blow and kept losing wickets. Nitish Rana, Shubman Gill and Dinesh Karthik all walked back in the next few overs to leave the team struggling at 42/4 in the 8th over.

Andre Russell’s poor run with the bat continued as well and at 61/5 in the 11th over, KKR looked down and out. However, the newly-appointed skipper Eoin Morgan and Pat Cummins had other ideas. The time was to rebuild but the latter played a few shots early on to get going and that changed the momentum of the innings.

KKR finally got a partnership going and with Cummins batting well, Morgan played second fiddle to him. The duo assessed the conditions, which should’ve been done by the top-order batsmen, and posted a semblance of a score for the team. Trent Boult and Nathan Coulter-Nile were taken to absolute cleaners in the last two overs.

Cummins got to his fifty in the last over as well while KKR’s skipper finally opened up in the last few balls of the innings. 21 runs were scored in the final over as KKR posted a fighting total of 148 runs for the loss of five wickets after 20 overs. While Cummins remained beaten on 53 off 36, Morgan played a decent knock of 39* off just 29 balls.

For MI, Rahul Chahar was exceptional with the figures of 2/18 while Jasprit Bumrah was at his usual best going for only 22 runs in his four overs.

Quinton de Kock blows KKR bowlers away

Chasing 149 to win, MI started extremely well with their openers, Quinton de Kock and Rohit Sharma taking on the bowling in the powerplay. Anticipating the possibility of the pitch slowing down later, they didn’t let any of the bowlers settle down. It was an exhibition of some sumptuous hitting from the duo.

They added 94 runs in less than 11 overs and after the powerplay itself, KKR were out of the game. Shivam Mavi though produced a beauty of a delivery to dismiss Rohit Sharma while Suryakumar Yadav played too many shots before getting out to Varun Chakravarthy. At the other end, De Kock went absolutely berserk and kept playing his shots even after the field was spread.

He toyed with the KKR bowlers and of all, the pull shots flying out of the ground were fascinating to watch on the day. He remained unbeaten on 78 off just 44 balls with nine fours and three sixes while Hardik Pandya, at the other end, also eased into a few strokes during his stay. MI reached home in the 17th over itself and hardly broke a sweat in the modest chase.

Here’s how Twitter reacted: