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Mumbai Indians pace bowler Jasprit Bumrah and leg spinner Karn Sharma shared seven wickets to set up a six-wicket win over Kolkata Knight Riders and enter the final of the Indian Premier League (IPL) on Friday.
Twice champions, Mumbai Indians will take on Rising Pune Supergiant in the final to be played in Hyderabad on Sunday.
Opting to bowl after winning the toss at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium, Mumbai Indians rode on the brilliance of Bumrah (3/7) and Man-of-the-Match Karn Sharma (4/16), as they restricted Kolkata Knight Riders to a paltry 107. Mumbai Indians chased down the target in 14.3 overs, reaching 111/4.
Early slump
It was an impressive start from Rohit Sharma’s men as Kolkata Knight Riders lost three wickets in the powerplay overs while managing just 25 runs — their lowest tally in the first six overs this season. Bumrah was the star in that period, getting rid of Chris Lynn (4) and Robin Uthappa (1) while Karn Sharma lured pinch-hitting opener Sunil Narine (10) and beat him with a googly to have him stumped.
Karn Sharma then got rid of skipper Gautam Gambhir (12) and Colin de Grandhomme off successive deliveries; Gambhir holing out to Hardik Pandya at deep mid-wicket and de Grandhomme trapped in front for a golden duck. He missed a hat-trick, but had done enough to throw KKR off the track.
The Knights had something to hold on to as the uncapped pair of Ishank Jaggi and Suryakumar Yadav stitched a 56-run partnership for the sixth wicket to pull Kolkata Knight Riders out of the dismal situation. But both failed to build on the starts, dismissed for 28 and 31 respectively. Mitchell Johnson then picked two wickets in his final over while Lasith Malinga cleaned up Ankit Rajpoot with a yorker.
Chawla strikes
Mumbai Indians too received an early jolt as they lost both the openers in the first three overs to be 36/3 at the end of the powerplay. Lendl Simmons (3) was the first to go, leg-spinner Piyush Chawla trapping him in front before Parthiv Patel (14) edged off Umesh Yadav to Uthappa behind the stumps.
Chawla then cleaned up Ambati Rayudu (6) with a gem of a delivery to ignite some hope for Kolkata Knight Riders, but all of that was crushed by Rohit Sharma (26) and Krunal Pandya (45no) as the duo stitched a 54-run partnership to take the game away from the opposition.
Krunal donned the aggressor’s role, hitting eight boundaries in his 30-ball stay while his skipper played the anchoring role. Neither took too many chances and rotated the strike while punching the bad deliveries to the fence.
They hammered Chawla for 16 runs off his last over before Rohit Sharma fell to Nathan Coulter-Nile in the 13th over. However, the job was all but done by then as his side were just 20 runs away from victory. Krunal and Kieron Pollard (9) scored those run without any further drama.
(HT)
