Bradley Hodge`s spirited innings of 73 failed to turn the tide in his team`s favour as Kolkata suffered their fifth straight defeat of the tournament when they lost to Mumbai by 9 runs.
Batting first after Tendulkar won the toss, Mumbai Indians posted a modest a total 149 runs for Kolkata Knight Riders to chase.
Tendulkar’s decision to bat first after seeing a white track at Buffalo Park for a moment looked to be wrong one as they lost early wickets.
Mumbai got off to horrendous start, losing three wickets for just 54 runs. Kolkata who had no fortune going with them until then, felt relatively better after getting rid of dangerous Sanath Jayasuriya and explosive Sachin Tendulkar before the strategy break. The two openers had carted Riders all over the park in their previous encounter.
Harbhajan Singh, who came after the fall of Jayasuriya, could not do much and was dismissed for 6 after facing seven deliveries. Tendulkar, who showed good signs early on, was then lured into a false shot by Ajit Agarkar at the personal score of 34.
In the end Mumbai managed to reach to 148/6 after 20 overs, courtesy JP Duminy’s gritty innings of 52 of 37 balls. Had it not been the carefully planned innings from Duminy, Mumbai were staring at some serious questions as they yet again saw their middle-order collapsing against some pretty ordinary KKR bowling.
But, just like winning, losing is a habit as Kolkata found them in deep sea when Chris Gayle saw his stumps flying all over the place after the wooden timber received a deadly blow from Zaheer Khan’s rocketing delivery. Earlier, fortune again rubbed Kolkata the wrong way after Sourav Ganguly, considered as God of off-side, perished trying to knick one off the very first ball of the innings from Zaheer Khan.
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