Knights trounce Kings at Eden

Skipper Sourav Ganguly yet again emerged with his best to hand an upset to the Kings XI Punjab by playing one innings of his lifetime to end their DLF Indian Premier League campaign in a winning note with 13 points from 14 games. It was an excellent treat to the home crowd at Eden Gardens Kolkata, on Sunday evening, as the ‘Prince of Kolkata’ led from the front to take his team to triumph.

Chasing a target of 175, the Riders lost six wickets putting 106 runs on the board when they needed another 74 runs in next 4.3 overs, which seemed impossible. However, paceman Umar Gul made a fierce knock of 24 in just 11 balls including three sixes and one boundaries before falling to VRV Singh. Along with Ganguly, they put a stand of 49-run for the seventh wicket which turned out to be the crucial one.

Ganguly then took the heat and trashed 15 runs from the first four balls of last over bowled by Irfan Pathan. Showing his class as in all format of the game, Sourav again offer some rest to his critics and entertained his home crowd who were in full support despite the fact that they are out of the final four of the inaugural edition of IPL. Ganguly in his unbeaten 86 off 53 balls turned the whole equation in favours of Kolkata hitting six boundaries and six lofty sixes.

Though it was a ‘no win-no loss’ for both the teams, but Kolkata playing for its pride laid a solid foundation of 45 runs in 5.2 runs before Salman Butt (24 off 19 balls) knocked down to Sreesanth. As wickets tumbled at one side, Ganguly kept his point intact till the end to ensure his pride in a winning note.

Earlier batting first, the Kings XI Punjab put a decent total of 174 for seven as both the openers Shaun Marsh (40 off 31) and James Hopes (13 off 10) batted cleverly. After the depart of Das and Pyush Chawla cheaply, but Marsh and Kumar Sangakkara (64 off 45 balls), a 83 run partnership set the tempo, which captain Yuvraj Singh carried on in his valuable 27 off 18 balls. M. Jayawardena too contributed 11 runs.

However, it was Man-of-the-Match Umar Gul who did the damage first taking four wickets for 23 and then batted superbly to take his team closer to the wining margin.

Score Card
Kings XI Punjab 174/6 (Sangakkara 64, Marsh 40, Gul 23-4)
Kolkata Knight Riders 175/7 (Ganguly 86*, Gul 24 --- Sreesanth, Piyush Chawla, VRV Singh two wicket each)

Teams
Kolkata Knight Riders: Salman Butt, Sourav Ganguly (C), David Hussey, Debabrata Das, Aakash Chopra, Laxmi Shukla, Wriddhiman Prasanta Saha (W), Ajantha Mendis, Umar Gul, Ishant Sharma and Ashok Dinda.
Kings XI Punjab: James Hopes, Shaun Marsh, Yuvraj Singh (C), Mahela Jayawardena, Kumar Sangakkara (W), Tanmay Srivastava, Ramesh Powar, Piyush Chawla, Irfan Pathan, VRV Singh and Sreesanth.