Young wicketkeeper-batsman Ishan Kishan blasted a 21-ball 62 to help Mumbai Indians post 210/6 against Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) in an Indian Premier League (IPL) game at the Eden Gardens here on Wednesday.
The Jharkhand left-hander's pyrotechnics between the 10th and 15th over propelled MI from 62/2 in nine overs to 145/3 after 15 overs.
Ishan, whose innings was laced with five fours and six sixes, brought up his fifty in 17 balls, the joint second-fastest to reach the milestone with Sunil Narine who also completed his half century in 17 balls against Royal Challengers Bangalore here. Lokesh Rahul had smashed a 14-ball 50 this season, IPL's fastest.
Ishan and skipper Rohit Sharma (36; 31b; 2x4, 1x6) joined hands for a 82-run partnership for the third wicket off just 34 balls. Rohit was dropped by Nitish Rana on 10, when the team was on 90/2.
In the end, Ben Cutting's 9-ball 24 took MI past 200 as the last over went for 24 runs off Piyush Chawla (3/48).
Openers Evin Lewis and Suryakumar Yadav gave MI a decent start. Lewis was dropped by Kuldeep Yadav (3/43) running backwards from square leg off Prasidh Krishna (1/41) when he was batting on 16.
But the 26-year-old Trinidadian could not make the most of the reprieve, getting out in strange fashion trying to pull a loose Chawla delivery with the ball ballooning off the back of his bat to short third man where Chris Lynn took an easy catch.
Lewis and Suryakumar stitched together a 46-run stand for the opening wicket as Mumbai Indians were 47/1 at the end of Powerplay.
Former KKR player Suryakumar who has been MI's batting mainstay this season, then threw away a strong start, pulling a Chawla half tracker to Rinku Singh at deep midwicket.
At the halfway stage, Mumbai were 72/2 with Ishan joining Rohit in the middle.
Ishan was at it from the word go, taking Chawla for 14 runs in the 11th over and then turning the tide in the visitors' favour by hitting four back-to-back sixes off Kuldeep in the 14th over. As many as 25 runs were leaked in Kuldeep's third over as Mumbai looked good for a 200-plus score.
Karthik brought back Narine to check the flow of runs and the move worked. Ishan tried to clear the deep square leg boundary just after hitting a six but picked out Robin Uthappa.
Hardik Pandya (19; 13b; 2x6) and Rohit departed in quick succession with the latter giving Prasidh Krishna his first IPL wicket.
Brief scores: Mumbai Indians 210/6 in 20 overs (Ishan Kishan 62, Rohit Sharma 36, Suryakumar Yadav 36; Piyush Chawla 3/48, Sunil Narine 1/27) vs Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR).
--IANS
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