Pat Cummins, one of the best bowlers globally, had a great game with the bat for Kolkata Knight Riders against Mumbai Indians on Wednesday.
He hit a record-breaking 50 in the IPL, including 35 in an over. It took Cummins just 14 balls to reach 50 and join KL Rahul on top of the leaderboard.
Venkatesh Iyer kept going for a 50-ball 50 as KKR chased down 162 with four overs to spare.
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There were no words to describe how good Cummins was. KKR needed 35 from 30 balls, and the Australian Test captain hit six sixes and four boundaries in his 15-ball 56.
Daniel Sams took the brunt of Cummins’ attack the most, giving up 35 runs in the 16th over, which meant that KKR won.
When Cummins came in at number six, he and Iyer hit 60 in just 2.1 overs to make MI’s 161/4 look small. Thus, MI lost their third game in a row.
There were only 16 runs in the first four overs for KKR. As KKR lost Ajinkya Rahane and captain Shreyas Iyer, it was hard for them to get back on their feet. They were 35 for two in the sixth over.
Then Murugan Ashwin got rid of Sam Billings. He made 17 from 12 balls before that.
While V. Iyer did his own thing and made sure the score was up to date, he didn’t do anything else.
For the third time in a row, Nitish Rana was caught at deep midwicket by Sams off Ashwin. Iyer stood firm at one end of the field, but wickets kept falling from the other.
After Andre Russell hit 11 runs in five balls, he left Iyer alone by top-edging a short delivery from Tymal Mills to Dewald Brevis, which left Iyer behind.
Then, Cummins took the fight to the other team. He hit Mills for a boundary and a six with two balls in a row.
In the last over that MI bowled, they gave up 23 runs. After that, Cummins smashed the MI bowlers all over the field to help KKR win in style.
Kieron Pollard, a veteran, helped Suryakumar Yadav hit a quick half-century with 23 runs in the last over to help MI after KKR kept things tight for most of their innings. MI won the game.
Kumar Yadav (52) and Tilak Varma (38 not out) put on 83 runs for the fourth wicket. Pollard hit Pat Cummins for three sixes to end MI’s innings on a high note, ending their innings on a high note.
Umesh Yadav and Rasikh Salam took wickets for KKR’s opening bowlers on a new pitch with a lot of grass. They used back-of-length deliveries to trouble MI’s openers Rohit Sharma and Ishan Kishan.
Umesh and Cummins took two wickets each early in the game to put MI on 55 for three at the start.
Umesh looked more dangerous because he kept probing the high-profile MI openers with his length, and he had a great first over that only led to one run.
Salam tried to be as good as his older pro.
Umesh got Rohit for the fifth time in the IPL with a back-of-length delivery in the third over. The MI captain couldn’t control a pull.
Baby AB is a nickname for 29-year-old Dewald Brevis, known for his 360-degree shot-making skills. He tried to hit the KKR bowlers.
He hit two fours and three sixes for a short time, but Varun Chakravarthy hit one-third of them.
This was all the time that Ishan Kishan (14 of 21) was a quiet spectator at the other end of the field.
Kishan didn’t seem to be in good shape from the start, and a bad start didn’t help either.
His fight ended in the 11th over when he miscued his pull-off Cummins to KKR captain Shreyas Iyer.
Varma was given a break in the 13th over when Ajinkya Rahane dropped him after a mix-up with Billings, giving him a chance to score.
During the same over, Yadav hit a four and a huge six. This helped MI’s innings get going.
As soon as Varma missed out on a chance, he grabbed it with both hands. Varma snagged a maximum from Cummins over fine leg and then smashed a boundary off Chakravarthy.
On the other hand, Yadav looked like he was in trouble when he came back from an injury. He mostly hit fours and sixes to score 50 in 34 balls.
