Robin Uthappa was elegance personified during his 52-ball 80 as he powered Kolkata Knight Riders to a convincing six-wicket win over Mumbai Indians in their Indian Premier league match here on Wednesday.
Uthappa struck nine fours and three sixes after a disciplined KKR attack restricted Mumbai Indians to 141 for five on a pitch that was not the best for batting. Battling woeful form, Yusuf Pathan remained unbeaten on 20 and hit the winning boundary.The Knight Riders were off to a brisk start, especially with Uthappa looking in good nick, and he hit a flurry of boundaries to take his side past the 50-run mark in the seventh over.
But just after Uthappa and Gautam Gambhir (14) recorded their fourth consecutive half-century partnership, the KKR skipper inside-edged a Harbhajan Singh onto his stumps.Thanks to the enterprise displayed by Uthappa - who lofted Pragyan Ojha over long on for a six besides finding the fence three times on either side of the fifth over - the Knight Riders were very much in the game.Ojha was cut behind point before Uthappa swept Harbhajan for another four.
KKR were 68 for one midway into their innings and needed 74 runs from 60 balls, the number of wickets remaining giving the eastern side a clear edge.Manish Pandey played the second fiddle as Uthappa sliced Jasprit Bumrah’s low full toss past point for another boundary.Earlier, skipper Rohit Sharma struck a half-century and guided Mumbai Indians to a modest total.
In his 45-ball 51-run knock, Rohit struck two sixes and four boundaries to prop his team up after it struggled to force the pace for a major part of the innings at the Barabati Stadium.Sunil Narine bowled a very economical final over, conceding just four runs besides dismissing Rohit.Sent into bat, Mumbai Indians lost their openers within the first five overs, with Morne Morkel and Shakib Al Hasan accounting for Chidhambaram Gautam and lendl Simmons respectively.
Struggling against the pace of Morkel, Gautam charged down the track against the lanky pacer but failed to clear cover where Suryakumar Yadav took a good catch.
Brief scores MI: 141/5 (Rohit Sharma 51, Ambati Rayudu 33; Morne Morkel 2/35, Sunil Narine 1/18) lost to KKR: 142/4 in 18.4 overs (Robin Uthappa 80; Harbhajan 2/22) by 6 wickets.