Gambhir steers KKR into IPL play-offs

Gautam Gambhir's unbeaten half-century virtually guaranteed Kolkata Knight Riders a berth in the Indian Premier League (IPL) play-offs here at the DY Patil Stadium yesterday

Gambhir steers KKR into IPL play-offs

Gautam Gambhir's unbeaten half-century virtually guaranteed Kolkata Knight Riders a berth in the Indian Premier League (IPL) play-offs here at the DY Patil Stadium yesterday.

With regular opener Eoin Morgan returning home to represent England Lions, and Jacques Kallis dropping down the order, Gambhir returned to his usual opening position and made easy work of the 119-run target set by Pune Warriors, who suffered their fourth consecutive defeat at home.

KKR skipper Gautam Gambhir plays a shot during his unbeaten knock
of 54 runs against Pune Warriors India at DY Patil Stadium last night.
Pic/AFP

Gambhir was at his attacking best, both as skipper and batsman. Electing to bowl, and standing at silly point to assert his domination over the contest, he gave his spinners, Shakib-al-Hasan, Iqbal Abdulla and Yusuf Pathan, the liberty of bowling to multiple catching positions throughout their spells.

They combined for 51 runs in 11 overs to restrict Pune to 118-7 on a track that has seen average first innings totals of 160 this season. Even opposition spinner Rahul Sharma's eyes popped out when the duo was turning the ball square, especially Abdulla, who troubled Sourav Ganguly in particular.

However, Sharma and his lone spin partner Yuvraj Singh hardly troubled Gambhir, who effortlessly rotated the strike, rarely hesitated to hit the leg-spinner against the turn on a few occasions.
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Super Gambhir
Gambhir stamped his authority when he struck Wayne Parnell, in the middle of an aggressive spell, through
covers to pick up consecutive boundaries at the start of his knock.

The southpaw favoured the cover region even as Sharma made him reach out with a slip in position.

Never did Gambhir fear dancing down the track, hitting Sharma out of the attack with a glorious loft over extra cover. Yusuf Pathan, who added 64 for the third-wicket with Gambhir, either blocked or hit the ball hard during his 25-ball knock.

Meanwhile, his skipper made batting easy with deft touches and glorious off-drives. In a perfect contrast of quality batsmanship vis- -vis hard-hitting, Gambhir finished with a superior strike rate, re-emphasising the need for a quality batsman to step up in a low-scoring game.u00a0 However, Pathan was adjudged man of the match for his overall performance ufffd 2-23 and 29.

Earlier, the turning point came when Jesse Ryder holed out to mid-off against Pathan. Callum Ferguson, promoted ahead of Ganguly, started out with two boundaries before getting stumped courtesy Shakib's guise.

Robin Uthappa, Yuvraj, Ganguly and Sachin Rana all got starts, but Kolkata's spin-attack struck at crucial junctures, disallowing Pune any momentum.u00a0