Dominate the middle overs and win the match. That seems to be the flavour of the Indian Premier League this season. The same was on display at the Wankhede Stadium on Friday as the Kolkata Knight Riders clinched a convincing win despite having its back to the wall early on in the game. As a result, in a game influenced heavily by bowling units with all 20 wickets falling on the night, it was the 83-run association between Venkatesh Iyer and Manish Pandey (Impact Player) in the middle overs of the first innings that turned out to be the difference between Knight Riders and host Mumbai Indians. Had it not been for the duo’s partnership, Knight Riders – reeling at 57 for five – would have struggled to put on the 169 runs it did before being bowled out in the last over. Suryakumar Yadav then tried his best to take a cue from Venkatesh but thanks to KKR’s spin duo of Varun Chakaravarthy and Sunil Narine controlling the middle overs, Suryakumar perished even before MI got close to the finish line. As a result, KKR emerged as a clear second in the standings while MI’s campaign is all but over after its eighth loss of the season. Venkatesh carried on from his sterling hundred at the same venue last season to notch up his fourth fifty-plus score in five outings against MI. He found an ally in veteran Pandey who kept the scoreboard flowing. In the nine-over period from the seventh till the 15th over, KKR added 75 runs for the loss of Rinku Singh, who top-edged back to Piyush Chawla off the first ball after the PowerPlay. MI lost three wickets while adding 73 runs in the same period. The additional wickets proved to be the difference. Once Suryakumar’s skier off Andre Russell was pouched by Phil Salt, the game was all but over. Just like Nuwan Thushara in the PowerPlay and Jasprit Bumrah at the death in the first essay, Mitchell Starc targeted the stumps to finish the game off in a hurry. SCOREBOARD KOLKATA KNIGHT RIDERS Phil Salt c Tilak b Thushara 5 (3b, 1×4), Sunil Narine b Hardik 8 (8b, 1×6), Angkrish Raghuvanshi c Suryakumar b Thushara 13 (6b, 2×6), Shreyas Iyer c David b Thushara 6 (4b, 1×4), Venkatesh Iyer b Bumrah 70 (52b, 6×4, 3×6), Rinku Singh c & b Chawla 9 (8b, 2×4), Manish Pandey (Impact Player in place of Raghuvanshi) c sub (Brevis) b Hardik 42 (31b, 2×4, 2×6), Andre Russell (run out) 7 (2b, 1×6), Ramandeep Singh c Coetzee b Bumrah 2 (4b), Mitchell Starc b Bumrah 0 (2b), Vaibhav Arora (not out) 0; Extras (lb-1, nb-1, w-5): 7; Total (in 19.5 overs): 169. FALL OF WICKETS 1-7 (Salt, 0.4 overs), 2-22 (Raghuvanshi, 2.2), 3-28 (Shreyas, 2.6), 4-43 (Narine, 4.2), 5-57 (Rinku, 6.1), 6-140 (Pandey, 16.2), 7-153 (Russell, 16.6), 8-155 (Ramandeep, 17.4), 9-155 (Starc, 17.6). MUMBAI INDIANS BOWLING Thushara 4-0-42-3, Bumrah 3.5-0-18-3, Coetzee 2-0-24-0, Hardik 4-0-44-2, Dhir 3-0-25-0, Chawla 3-0-15-1. MUMBAI INDIANS Ishan Kishan b Starc 13 (7b, 1×4, 1×6), Rohit Sharma (Impact Player in place of Thushara) c Pandey b Narine 11 (12b, 1×6), Naman Dhir b Varun 11 (11b, 2×4), Suryakumar Yadav c Salt b Russell 56 (35b, 6×4, 2×6), Tilak Varma c Narine b Varun 4 (6b), Nehal Wadhera b Narine 6 (11b, 1×4), Hardik Pandya c Pandey b Russell 1 (3b), Tim David c Shreyas b Starc 24 (20b, 1×4, 1×6), Gerald Coetzee b Starc 8 (7b, 1×6), Piyush Chawla c Narine b Starc 0 (1b), Jasprit Bumrah (not out) 1 (1b); Extras (lb-3, nb-1, w-6): 10; Total (in 18.5 overs): 145. FALL OF WICKETS 1-16 (Kishan, 1.4), 2-38 (Dhir, 4.1), 3-46 (Rohit, 5.5), 4-61 (Tilak, 8.4), 5-70 (Wadhera, 10.5), 6-71 (Hardik, 11.2), 7-120 (Suryakumar, 15.3), 8-144 (David, 18.2), 9-144 (Chawla, 18.3). KNIGHT RIDERS BOWLING Arora 3-0-35-0, Starc 3.5-0-33-4, Varun 4-0-22-2, Narine 4-0-22-2, Russell 4-0-30-2. Toss: Mumbai Indians. PoM: Venkatesh. KKR won by 24 runs. MI 119 for six MI was 119/6 in 15 overs with Suryakumar (56) and David (9) batting. Kishan (13), Rohit (11), Dhir (11), Tilak (4), Wadhera (6), and Hardik (1) were dismissed
