Two great matches today, with Kolkata Knight Riders posting 172 for 6 to beat Sunrisers Hyderabad, who made 155 for 6, meaning KKR won by 17 runs. Kumar posted 3-20, removing Narine for 6, Pandey for 46 (caught by Warner), and de Grandhomme for a duck. Rashid caught Uthappa for 60+ off Cutting, and clean bowled Gambhir for 15, and Ohja snaffled Yadav off Nehra before Woakes claimed 2-49 - catching and bowling Henriques for 13, having Yuvraj caught by the sub for 26. Boult sent back Cutting, via a de Grandhomme catch, for 15; Woakes caught Warner off Kuldeep for 26; de Grandhomme snaffled Dhawan off Pathan for 23; Uthappa stumped Hooda for 13 off Narine.
Bhuvneshwar and Kuldeep bowled brilliantly, but it wasn’t enough, and they were made to rue poor umpiring: Uthappa nicked his first ball to the keeper, but Anil Dandekar did not spot it and he went on to strike 68 off 39 balls. Warner and Dhawan sauntered to 45 for 0 in the Powerplay, but Kuldeep's dismissal of Warner derailed the chase. They lost 6 for 83, and eventually their second successive match. Sunrisers started really well - especially considering on Thursday, Narine and Gambhir ran up 76 in in 34 balls, taking KKR to their best Powerplay score. But Narine was undone by a yorker, Gambhir was bowled by Rashid, and KKR were kept to their first sub-50 score in the Powerplay this season. Bhuvneshwar is great at the death - last year, he picked up 13 wickets in 162 balls in the death overs - the joint highest with Shane Watson. Uthappa struck at 174.35, but the rest of the Knight Riders batsmen had an average strike rate of 114.81. He took Rashid for 21 runs in 12 balls, the most any batsman has scored off him in this IPL and also struck 37 off 14 balls through the midwicket and long-on area. Out of his 68 runs, 52 came on the leg side.
Why is Gambhir opening instead of Uthappa? Uthappa averages 37.34 and with a strike-rate of 137.18 as an opener for KKR whereas Gambhir's corresponding figures are 31.64 and 125.30. Considering Gambhir is a better player against spin as well, it is interesting that he has not decided to bat down the order. And does something need to be done about the poor decision-making? Buttler's LBW decision off Tahir, Pollard's reprieve off the same bowler in the same match, Buttler's LBW off Rajpoot vs KKR, Sharma's off Narine in the same game, Carlos Brathwaite given not out vs Chahal during Delhi vs RCB, Warner taking strike after hitting a boundary off the last ball of the previous over, Jadhav's LBW off Aaron, Uthappa not given out caught off Bhuvneshwar Kumar.
In the other match, Delhi Daredevils posted 188 for 6 and beat KXIP by 51 runs, after they managed 137 for 9. Samson made 19 and Billings made 55, before Morgan snaffled the former off Cariappa and the latter holed out to Miller off Patel. Aaron sent back Nair, caught by Saha, for a three-ball duck. And Morgan caught Iyer and Pant off Sharma and Aaron, before the Sharmas combined to send back Morris, leaving Anderson unbeaten on 39. In reply, Morris claimed 3-23 (Amla caught by Billings for 19, Patel and Cariappa clean bowled for 44 and 1 respectively), Cummins claimed 2-23 (Morgan caught by Nair for 22 and Sharma clean bowled for 13) and Nadeem 2-13 (trapping Vohra LBW for 3 and Saha caught by Khan for 7), while Billings caught Maxwell off Mishra, and Miller was trapped in front by Anderson.
No side had chased down 189 to win an IPL game at the Feroz Shah Kotla and, having conceded 28 more than the average first-innings score at this venue, KXIP needed their batsmen to perform, but they sunk to 64 for 5 in the 11th over. Billings was excellent, and he capitalise on Aaron’s poor form. He had an IPL economy rate of 8.79 across 39 matches prior to this game and despite two average outings this season, he was picked again but conceded 45 off his four overs, with two wickets being scant consolation. Eventually Kings XI paid the price for conceding 68 off the last five overs.
Delhi were 120-4 after 15 overs and KXIP will have wanted them to score 160ish, not 189. The highest successful chase at this venue, across all IPL seasons, was 188. Daredevils scored 68 off the last five overs - their joint second-best tally in that phase in all IPL seasons. Their best, 82, came in their previous match, against Rising Pune. Of Anderson's 39 runs off 22 balls, 31 off 10 came against Axar Patel and Sandeep Sharma. Anderson's overall strike rate in the IPL is 138.15 - it climbs to 173.24 in the last five overs.
Mumbai Indians v Gujarat Lions tomorrow. Indians lost both their matches against Gujarat Lions last season but have beaten RCB, Sunrisers and KKR, and lost to Pune this campaign, while Gujarat have beat Pune but lost to Sunrisers and KKR. Malinga missed Mumbai's last match against RCB due to an illness. If fit, he is likely to slot back in place of Southee. For Lions, Dwayne Bravo remains unavailable as he recovers from a hamstring injury. Will McCleneghan be an unlikely match-winner? He claimed two wickets last time out after a disappointing start to the season, including Kohli's scalp. In the fixture last year, he took 4 for 21, but has conceded 149 runs in four matches, the most by a bowler so far.
Jadeja has taken 12 wickets against Mumbai in the IPL but his economy rate of 8.95 is his poorest against all teams. In 19 matches against Mumbai, he has conceded 394 runs in 44 overs. Kulkarni has dismissed Rohit Sharma in four out of seven innings and legspin has been an issue for Rohit in the IPL. Imran Tahir, Rashid Khan and Samuel Badree have caused three of his four dismissals this season and overall in the IPL, two of the three most successful spinners against Rohit have been legspinners - Amit Mishra and Shane Warne. With only one wicket at an average of 227 and an economy rate of 9.65, Lions spinners have been the poorest of the teams this season.
In the other match, RCB face Pune. The two teams have faced off only twice, in IPL 2016, with RCB winning both times. This year, RCB have lost to Mumbai, KXIP but defeated Delhi, while Pune have been beaten by Gujarat, Delhi and KXIP. The game has plenty of subplots: will Gayle play? Will Pune choose Adam Zampa's legspin over Ferguson's pace, after he went at 11 an over last time out? Gayle has scored 51 off 30 deliveries against Tahir and 44 off 16 balls against Zampa, in the CPL and BBL. The only Pune bowler to dismiss Kohli is Dinda, who was dropped in the last game. Against Tahir and Zampa, Kohli has scored 75 runs off 42 balls. Tymal Mills has never bowled to Ben Stokes in a T20 game. Stokes scores at a strike-rate of 166 in the last five overs while Mills has taken 31 wickets in the same period, averaging 13.25 with an economy rate of 7.36.