IPL 10 MI vs KKR: Hardik, Nitish turn heros as Mumbai wins thriller

Mumbai: Mumbai Indians (MI) won a last-over nail-biting thriller defeating Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) by 6-wickets in their Indian Premier League (IPL) 10 encounter at Wankhede Stadium here on Sunday.

KKR could blame very poor fielding, especially in the last over, for the defeat as a boundary was missed and a catch was dropped that helped Hardik Pandya lead his team to a mind-boggling victory, with his extremely belligerent match-winning inning of 29-runs that came off just 11 balls and was decorated with 4 fours and 2 sixes.

Nitish Rana was instrumental in turning the tables with his aggression despite consistent fall of wicket on the other end. He smashed a very important half-century hitting 5 fours and 3 sixes, before getting out in the 19^th over of the match.

Earlier, in reply to KKR's 178/7, Parthiv Patel (30 off 27) and Jos Buttler (28 off 22) provided a decent start to MI. Rohit Sharma (2 off 6), however, fell prey to a bad LBW decision by the on-field umpire.

Krunal Pandya and Kieron Pollard also failed to fire and left MI reeling under pressure at 119/5 with 59 runs required off less than 4 overs.

Also Read: IPL 10 MI vs KKR: Manish Pandey’s brute knock leads Kolkata to 178/7

Hardik and Nitish, however, had different plans and they completely dismantled the KKR bowling which is known for good bowling and fielding. The pair added 41 runs off just 14 balls to bring MI right back into the match and subsequently win it in the final over.

Hardik and Nitish showed great temperament in their innings as those were the kind of inning which would be remembered for a very long time. Nitish Rana was named man of the match for his amazing fifty.

On the other hand, Ankit Rajpoot was the pick of the bowlers from KKR's side as he bagged 3 wickets for 37 runs in his four overs, while Chris Woakes, Sunil Narine and Kuldeep Yadav got one wicket each.

Earlier, after being put in to bat first, KKR managed to post a huge score of 178/7 in final 20 overs, backed by a tremendous 81-run knock by Manish Pandey who took just 47 balls to lead his team to such a big total singlehandedly. He also smashed 5 fours and 5 sixes in his inning.

Krunal Pandya had bagged most number of wickets for MI as he ended his spell at 3/24, while Lasith Malinga bagged 2 wickets and Mitchell McClanaghan and Jasprit Bumrah managed one scalp each.

This was the first win for Mumbai Indians while the first defeat for KKR in the tenth season of the Indian Premier League.