Blistering half-centuries from Ishan Kishan (58 off 25) and Suryakumar Yadav (43 off 25) have helped Mumbai Indians beat the Kolkata Knight Riders in first of the two IPL 2023 matches on Sunday. Chasing 186 at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai, the Blue and Gold Brigade reached their target with14 balls to spare to bring up a 5-wicket win.
Even though the best innings of the day was played by Kolkata Knight Riders' Venkatesh Iyer, unfortunately it came on a losing cause as despite the left-handed batter scoing 104 off 51 balls, the rest of his teammates could not bat at the same tempo and it was really down to Andre Russell's 21* off 11 which helped them get past 180.
It was a record-breaking effort from Iyer who notched up his maiden T20 ton and became just the second batter from the team to get to that landmark after Brendon McCullum's 158* in the first-ever IPL match in 2008. However, MI set the momentum right in the first six overs with Rohit Sharma, who wasn't part of the Starting 11 and Suryakumar Yadav was leading in his absence but was roped in as an Impact Sub, along with Ishan Kishan helping MI get off to a spectacular start.
In fact, MI openers put on 65 runs in 4.5 overs before Rohit fell to Suyash Sharma trying to time the ball and checking it at the last minute which led to his downfall. However, Kishan didn't stop there and carried on in the same tempo before falling to Varun Chakravarthy in the eighth over. Much to the delight of the MI fans, stand-in captain Suryakumar got back amongts the runs and eased off the required run rate pressure before Tim David (24 off 13) and Cameron Green (1 off 1) finished off the chase for MI.
MI's second win on the trot means they now have 4 points from 4 matches and are placed at the eigth place on the table. On the other hand, Kolkata are at the fifth place with four points from five matches.