KOLKATA, India, CMC – West Indies all-rounder Andre Russell produced a whirlwind knock but then conceded 17 runs in the penultimate over as Mumbai Indians pulled off a six-wicket win over Kolkata Knight Riders with five balls to spare in the Indian Premier League here yesterday.
Sent in, KKR piled up an imposing 187 for five at Eden Gardens with captain Gautam Gambhir top-scoring with 64, Manish Pandey, 52, and Russell a 17-ball 36.
In reply, captain Rohit Sharma stroked a glittering unbeaten 84 and Englishman Jos Buttler, a sensational 41, as Mumbai romped home in the final over.
With the result, both KKR and Mumbai have now won one of two.
The hosts lost Robin Uthappa cheaply for eight at 21 in the fourth over but Gambhir and Pandey put on exactly 100 to fire the innings.
Opener Gambhir struck four fours and a six off 52 deliveries while Pandey faced 29 balls and crashed three fours and three sixes.
At Pandey’s dismissal in the 14th over, Russell arrived to play a blinder, smashing a four and four sixes as he added a frenetic 43 off 22 deliveries for the third wicket with Gambhir.
Two of his sixes came through hefty leg-side blows in the 15th over from seamer Tim Southee which cost 16 runs.
Mumbai then started steadily, with Rohit putting on 53 for the first wicket with Parthiv Patel (22) and a further 34 for the second wicket with Hardik Pandya (9).
At the half-way stage, the visitors faced a required run rate of nearly 10 runs per over in order to get the remaining 87 runs and Buttler provided the impetus in a scintillating 22-ball innings containing three fours and three sixes.
He single-handedly took 18 runs from Russell’s third over over – the 16th of the innings – before falling to the Jamaican in his next over, the penultimate one of the game.
Mumbai needed 18 at the start of that over and even though Russell claimed Buttler to a skied catch at mid-off, Rohit smashed the last three balls of the over for boundaries to add to the straight four off the first delivery, as KKR squandered their hopes of winning.
Pacer Russell finished with one for 52 from his four overs.
