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
— IndianPremierLeague (@IPL) September 23, 2021
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
3 US troops killed, 5 seriously wounded during Iran attacks, military says
Washington (AP): Three American service members have been killed and five others seriously wounded during the US attacks on Iran, the military said Sunday, marking the first American casualties in a major offensive that has sparked retaliation from the Islamic Republic.
US Central Command, which oversees the Middle East, announced the deaths in a post on X but did not say when and where they occurred. The statement said “several others sustained minor shrapnel injuries and concussions” and were going to return to duty.
Central Command described the situation “as fluid” and said it would withhold the identities of the service members who were killed for 24 hours after their families were notified.
The US military also denied Iranian claims that the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier was struck with ballistic missiles, saying on X that the “missiles launched didn't even come close.”
President Donald Trump had warned that American troops could be killed or injured in the operation.
“The lives of courageous American heroes may be lost, and we may have casualties,” the Republican president said in a video address released early Saturday. “That often happens in war. But we're doing this not for now. We're doing this for the future.”
Following the US-Israeli strikes that killed Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and other leaders, Iran's counterattacks have struck US bases in Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates.
Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard has threatened to launch its “most intense offensive operation” ever targeting Israeli and American military installations.
Before the strikes, Trump had built up the largest US military presence in the Middle East in decades. The arrival of the Lincoln and three accompanying guided-missile destroyers at the end of January bolstered the number of warships in the region.
The world's largest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, and four accompanying destroyers later were dispatched from the Caribbean Sea to head to the Middle East.
The Ford was part of the US raid in Venezuela that captured leader Nicolás Maduro, who was brought to New York to face drug trafficking charges. The operation in January claimed no American lives but left seven US troops with gunshot wounds and shrapnel-related injuries.
One of those injured received the Medal of Honor during Trump's State of the Union address last week. Trump said Army Chief Warrant Officer 5 Eric Slover piloted the lead CH-47 Chinook helicopter that descended on the “heavily protected military fortress” where Maduro was staying.
Trump has launched several military operations during his second term, including strikes on members of the Islamic State group in Syria in retaliation for an ambush attack that killed two US troops and an American civilian interpreter in December.
The US military has also struck IS forces in Nigeria, after Trump accused the West African country's government of failing to rein in the targeting of Christians.
