KKR steamroll Mumbai Indians to enter top four
Abu Dhabi, Sep 23: Rookie Venkatesh Iyer left many in awe of his talent as Kolkata Knight Riders produced a clinical performance for the second successive game since IPL's resumption to tame the mighty Mumbai Indians by seven wickets and enter the top-four in the points table here on Thursday.
Iyer (53 off 30), playing his second IPL game, displayed the wide range of his strokes alongside Rahul Tripathi (74 not out off 42) to enable KKR to chase MI's modest total of 155 for six with as many as 29 balls to spare.
Quinton de Kock struck an entertaining 55 for MI before KKR bowlers bounced back in the last 10 overs, conceding 75 runs and taking five wickets.
Shubman Gill and Iyer gave KKR another flying start with the first two overs bowled by Trent Boult and Adam Milne going for 15 runs each.
Gill flicked Boult for a delightful six while Iyer pulled the New Zealand pace spearhead to set the tone for the rest of the innings.
While Jasprit Bumrah found Gill's stumps in the third over, Iyer went on to play a memorable knock comprising four boundaries and three sixes.
Iyer and Tripathi shared an 88-run stand for the second wicket which completely shut the door on MI, who suffered their second loss since IPL's resumption.
Earlier, MI skipper Rohit Sharma (33 off 30) got off the innings in scintillating fashion, caressing a Nitish Rana delivery on to the mid-off boundary. The skipper, who was in sublime touch in the Tests in England, had not played the opening game against CSK.
Star all-rounder Hardik Pandya did not start once again, raising questions about his fitness.
Rohit took the attack to mystery spinner Varun Charkravarthy with two consecutive fours in opening two deliveries of the fourth over.
De Kock was not to be left behind as he matched his skipper stroke for stroke, pulling a Lockie Ferguson delivery over the fence for the first maximum of the match.
Introduced into the attack in the sixth over, Prasidh Krishna was taken to task by de Kock, hitting the medium pacer twice over the fence to pick up 16 runs from his first over as MI cantered to 56 for no loss.
De Kock seemed unstoppable as he welcomed Andre Russell with consecutive fours. Morgan bowled out trump card Chakravarthy by the 11th over (4-0-22-0) with MI not losing a wicket against him.
Sunil Narine was also tidy giving away only 20 runs in four overs.
With de Kock going hammer and tongs, Rohit played the second fiddle and scored 33 runs off 30 balls before Narine got his man for the ninth time in T20s, holing out to Shubman Gill at the boundary.
KKR pulled things back between 10-15 overs, conceding only 26 runs and picked up two wickets.
Pollard, as he often does, came up with much needed big hits in the last five overs, including a flat batted six over mid wicket in Krishna's 18-run over.
Ferguson bowled a brilliant last over for KKR, removing the dangerous duo of Pollard and Krunal Pandya (12) at the cost of only six runs.
MI collected 49 runs from the last five overs.
Here's how the #VIVOIPL Points Table looks after Match 34 👇 #MIvKKR pic.twitter.com/pM3jh5pme6
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Same rules were there earlier too, my question is who altered them: Harbhajan Singh
New Delhi (PTI): Former India off-spinner Harbhajan Singh on Friday asserted that the BCCI's 10-point policy for its centrally-contracted players has actually been in place since his playing days and wanted to know when was it "altered" and by whom.
Terming the guidelines "fresh documentation", Harbhajan said the move diverts attention from the team's forgettable on-field performance against New Zealand and Australia recently.
Days after the 1-3 defeat in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, the BCCI has come up with a 10-point diktat to promote "discipline and unity", making domestic cricket mandatory, imposing restriction on the presence of families and personal staff on tours and banning individual commercial endorsements during series.
To Harbhajan, all these measures seemed like old wine in a new bottle.
"Let me first put this on record. When I was reading the travel policy document reported by the media, I hardly found anything new from the last time I represented India as a centrally-contracted cricketer," Harbhajan told PTI during an interaction.
"At least nine out of 10 points, including duration of family visits, staying in same hotel, practice timings, all are same. My question is if these rules were in place during my time, who all have altered it and when? That should be probed," Harbhajan, who has 700 plus international wickets across formats, said.
The same assertion was also made by one of Harbhajan's former India teammate Irfan Pathan.
For Harbhajan, what is certainly not funny is the timing of issuing these guidelines as he feels the discussion should have been strictly on cricket only.
"Hum log mudde se bhatak rahein hain (We are deviating from the main issue). We didn't lose 1-3 because wives and partners were there for two months. We didn't lose because someone travelled separately.
"We lost because we have played very poor cricket at times. We didn't bat well even at home. We have players who are horribly out of form. What are the course corrections being made? Or is it just these off-the-field things being discussed?" he questioned.
One of India's finest spinners, Harbhajan then recollected his playing days.
"I think some of the points needed to be revisited because they were being flouted. Like in our times, I never saw a Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid or Anil Kumble leave for Mumbai, Kolkata or Bengaluru just because the match has ended in three days and next game is a week away.
"They all stayed and travelled to next destination. Only change I see (in the new rulebook) is 150 kg suitcase allowance. Back in the day, we used to have lesser.
"Why would you need to tell players that you have to travel by team bus? That's a given. If someone was breaking the rule, that person needs to be probed."
While he completely supported barring the personal entourage of any particular player or a coach, Harbhajan felt that the BCCI can have a couple of quality chefs travelling with the team.
"BCCI has deep pockets. Why do you need to carry personal chefs. In soccer World Cup, big teams carry their own chef, who takes care of dietary requirements of players. Have a couple of team chefs. It is not a big deal," he added.
According to Harbhajan, the only thing new in the policy document is players requiring prior approval of head coach Gautam Gambhir on certain matters, and the former spinner didn't agree with that.
"In our times, it used to be written that prior approval of BCCI was needed on certain matters. So, for approvals, drop a mail to BCCI and ask for permission. Why does the head coach need to get into all this? That is not his job.
"His job is on the field and in the technical aspects where we are lacking. Administrative part should be left with competent people in the BCCI," he said.
