Ryan Rickelton and debutant Ashwani Kumar made it an easy night for the Mumbai Indians as they earned their first win in this year’s Tata IPL when they thrashed the Kolkota Knight Riders by eight wickets with 43 balls to spare at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai on Monday night.
The match was effectively won by Mumbai’s bowlers, and Ashwani in particular who took 4/24 in three overs. The 23-year-old from the Punjab became the first Indian player to take four wickets on his IPL debut.
The Mumbai pacemen, well marshalled by skipper Hardik Pandya, used the grassy surface particularly well, as they claimed four KKR wickets in the power play and five at the end of the sixth over with only 45 on the board.
Trent Boult claimed his 30th IPL scalp in his first over when he castled Sunil Narine and the in-form Quinton de Kock followed soon after, belting Deepak Chahar to mid-off.
KKR skipper Ajinkya Rahane became Kumar’s first victim with his first delivery, slicing a drive to deep backward point where Tilak Varma eventually claimed the catch after a juggle.
Only Angkrish Raghuvanshi (26 off 16 balls) really looked the part before he was caught in the deep by Naman Dhir, the first of three fine catches by him.
Venkatesh Iyer was dropped twice (by Kumar) before falling to Chahar and there was a flourish from Manish Pandey (an impact sub brought in as a specialist batter) and Ramandeep Singh (22) before the innings was wrapped up in the 17th over for a paltry 116.
On a good, relatively fast track, Mumbai had the easiest of tasks to achieve victory but initially it looked tough for Rickelton in particular who was beaten four deliveries in a row by left-arm paceman Spencer Johnson who bowled a superb first over.
Rickelton’s luck held, however, and he settled down after he struck a ferocious off-drive off Harshit Rana in the fourth over. Rohit Sharma, struggling for runs, was not so lucky however, as he was caught at mid-off mistiming a delivery from Andre Russell. The West Indian also claimed the second wicket, getting Will Jacks smartly caught low down in the covers by Rahane.
But after that it was all Rickelton – who struck his first IPL half-century – as he clubbed four fours and five sixes in his 41-ball unbeaten 62. And there was time also for some audacious strokeplay from Suryakumar Yadav who hit two extraordinary sixes over fine leg in his unbeaten 27 as the pair finished the job in only 12.5 overs. Yadav also passed the 8000-run mark in T20 cricket, the fifth Indian batter to do so.