MUMBAI, India, CMC – Mystery West Indies off-spinner Sunil Narine proved too much for fellow Windies teammate Kieron Pollard’s Mumbai Indians, producing a devastating spell to fire Kolkata Knight Riders to a key 32-run victory in the Indian Premier League here yesterday.
Defending a seemingly inadequate 140 for seven at the Wankhede Stadium, Narine finished with brilliant figures of four 15 from just 19 deliveries, to send Mumbai crashing to an embarrassing 108 all out, with five balls left in the innings.
Sent in to bat, KKR were led by a top score of 41 from Manoj Tiwary and 27 from captain Gautam Gambhir who hit 27 at the top of the order.
Barbados and West Indies all-rounder Dwayne Smith claimed one wicket for eight runs from two miserly overs while Pollard finished with one for 21 from three tight overs.
In reply, Mumbai were en route to victory at 60 for one in the 11th over with Sachin Tendulkar (27) and Dinesh Karthik (21) coasting along in a 34-run second wicket stand.
Narine’s re-introduction in the 11th over, however, sent the innings into turmoil.
The 23-year-old right-armer, who had earlier been given one over, returned to bowl Tendulkar off the inside edge with the sixth ball of his second over, before being pulled from the attack again.
Recalled in the 18th over with Mumbai needing 44 runs from three overs, Narine plucked out the dangerous Harbhajan Singh (1) with his first delivery to a catch by Tiwary at long-on before removing Rohit Sharma for 12 off the fifth delivery.
He formalised the result for KKR when he claimed the final wicket as RP Singh held out in the deep for three.
There was no success for either Pollard (8) or Smith (0) who fell in successive deliveries to seamer Jacques Kallis in the (2-32) in the 17th over.