Hogg in the mix to spark Knight Riders win

Piyush Chawla’s four-wicket haul and a blazing 42 off Yusuf Pathan’s blade helped the Kolkata Knight Riders beat the Delhi Daredevils to register their sixth win of the season.

Kolkata were helped by contributions by their entire batting order before Pathan and Johan Botha propelled them to 7-171 thanks to the 43 runs that came from the last 3.3 overs of their innings.

In reply, Delhi opted to go for a sound start than an aggressive one but capitulated in the face of Chawla’s leg-spin and lost by 13 runs in the end. Brad Hogg ended with figures of 1-27 from three overs, conceding 17 of those runs in the final over of his spell.

The Delhi Daredevils decided to strengthen their batting by getting in Albie Morkel in place of Nathan Coulter-Nile, while Mayank Agarwal was dropped for Manoj Tiwary.

Kolkata brought in Sunil Narine, who was passed by the IPL to bowl again, and Ryan ten Doeschate was benched.

Over the season, the pitch at the Eden Gardens has made it tougher for the batsmen to play freely and the spinners have begun to enjoy the conditions.

That’s why it came across as no surprise that Delhi captain JP Duminy decided to bring himself on after just three overs when the early breakthrough didn’t come.

But all that did was to give the Knight Riders openers a chance to free their arms, as Gautam Gambhir took two fours off it and Robin Uthappa hit a six over long-on.

Gambhir’s propensity to go after away-going deliveries without any movement of feet has led him to trouble on many occasions and that’s also how he got out tonight. Zaheer Khan was the beneficiary.

At the other end, Uthappa survived two dropped chances before Amit Mishra’s fizzing leg-spinner got the better of his clumsy attempt at sweep to leave Kolkata struggling for momentum at 2-63 after nine, having gotten to 0-37 from four at one stage.

It was Mishra’s introduction that had slowed the Knight Riders down, with the leggie conceded only two from his first two overs.

In a tactical bid to counter the two leg-spinners, Mishra and Imran Tahir, Kolkata sent Piyush Chawla up the order and the Daredevils responded by pulling the pair out of the attack.

Chawla did a reasonable job though, hitting a six and a four before following Manish Pandey back to the pavillion to leave Kolkata at 4-109 with five overs remaining.

Having pushed Pathan and Andre Russell down the order, the pair didn’t have too much time to settle down and when Tahir sent the hard-hitting West Indian back to the pavillion for five it seemed like Kolkata would struggle to get even 160.

It was Pathan and former Adelaide Strikers skipper Botha who pulled them through to 171.

Pathan had come into the competition with a reputation of being a slogger down the order but this season he seems to have traded a bit of his aggression for a little of common-sense.

The situation tonight demanded him to go berserk from the very start. That’s exactly how he went.

It took him six balls to hit his first six, muscling Yuvraj over the covers and then glanced one from Morkel to fine-leg to get himself a boundary.

When Mishra came on to bowl his third over, having given just two from his first two, Pathan greeted him with a maximum over long-off and then pulled one from Tahir for a four next over.

The slugging continued till the 19th over, when Tahir finally managed to induce him into mis-hitting one to long-off but by then he had taken Kolkata to 6-153 in 19.

And then Botha took over in the final over, hitting four fours in a row off Zaheer Khan to finish things off on a high.

Delhi looked to have gone into their chase with a clear-cut tactic of preserving wickets instead of trying to target the quick bowlers such that the pressure of playing the spinners on that track didn’t mount on them.

What made it even more interesting was that they eschewed risks throughout the first half of their innings.

As a result, Delhi’s new opening combination of Shreyas Iyer and Manoj Tiwary scored just 36 from their first six, with the pair hitting a joint total of only four boundaries.

The introduction of Narine made for an interesting change, given all that’s transpired in the past few months with respect to his bowling action.

Captain Gambhir didn’t shy away from bringing him on within the Powerplay and in a bid to put more pressure on him, Tiwary jumped down the track and hit him for a couple of fours.

Once the fielding restrictions were lifted though, Narine settled down into his rhythm and conceded just a couple of singles in his second.

Tiwary’s 28-ball 25 was ended in the 10th over when he failed to get a repeat of the previous big one he got against Chawla. Six off the second ball, gone off the fifth as Delhi went into the halfway stage at 1-64.

His opening partner, Iyer fell to Hogg in the next over. A quicker delivery saw him playing it on to his stumps to leave them struggling at 2-71.

The promotion of Kedar Jadhav over Yuvraj Singh didn’t work too well for Delhi and things turned worse when the former Indian southpaw lasted just three balls before holing out to deep square-leg.

In a space of an over, Chawla had bagged two wickets, and he would go on to add another scalp in his next. Delhi captain and their best batsman this tournament, Duminy was left with no option but to try and take him on in the face of the required-rate of more than 14, and only found a fielder for his slog sweep.

Saurabh Tiwary made it a slightly more interesting contest by hitting Hogg for a couple of sixes in one over, but the 42 they needed from the final three overs was a bridge too far for the Daredevils lower-order batsmen.