Pune Warriors end Kolkata Knight Riders’ IPL 2013 campaign

Even after Doeschate’s wicket,Pathan demolished Wayne Parnell’s over with some lusty blows to get his side close,but was ruled out on obstructing the field while running a single.

The right-hander,on his way to complete the single,made contact with the ball,which the umpires thought to be intentional,and was shown the red light.

Pathan (44-ball 72) played a brilliant knock under pressure,and stitched an attacking partnership with Doeschate. Kolkata were in the run-chase for a brief moment,but the attacking duo’s departure vanished little hopes of chasing Pune’s total.

Aaron Finch used eight bowlers in the middle,as the visitors looked desperate to post a win after one month. Last time they registered a win was back on 15th April.

Riding high on attacking knocks by skipper Aaron Finch (32-ball 48) and Manish Pandey (47-ball 66),Pune posted 170/4 on the board.

The Ranchi pitch,critcised for dual bounce in the last fixture,showed no such signs today,and looked good for batting. The visiting batsmen got their eye in,and were able to execute shots without much trouble.

Spin twins of Sunil Narine and Senanayake contained the flow of runs,but didn’t get much assistance from the seamers,who leaked runs from the other end.

Put into bat,Pune made their intentions clear by getting off to a flying start,courtesy a little cameo from Robin Uthappa. The right-hander didn’t last long,but set the tone for the remaining innings.

Skipper Finch didn’t change his style one bit,and accelerated after Uthappa’s departure. There was a slow phase in the middle with Pandey and Finch seeing off the spinners.

The duo broke free in the tenth over,where they picked up 15 runs,and followed up with a 17-run eleventh over. Home skipper Gautam Gambhir was proactive with his bowling changes,but couldn’t stop the flow of runs.

Finch was doing the bulk of the scoring,with Pandey happy to play second fiddle,and give the strike back to the skipper.

Things were going Pune’s way before L Balaji castled the dangerous right-hander just short of his fifty. Finch’s departure brought Yuvraj Singh to the crease,and saw Pandey continue from where the skipper left.

He started with a hat-trick of boundaries off Jacques Kallis’ bowling,and continued the assault on Balaji. Yuvraj,too,didn’t take much time to get his eye in,and got into the scheme of things.

Pandey and Yuvraj stitched an attacking partnership as Pune looked well on course to post a good total on the board. The duo couldn’t bat through,and were out in the last over of the innings,but ensured that the bowlers have a good total to defend.

It was a mixed effort with the ball by Kolkata,and the seamers were off-colour today. Spinners did bowl testing spells,but the quicks released the steam on a dead pitch with very little assistance from them.

Toss:Kolkata Knight Riders won the toss and elected to field first

Playing XI

Kolkata: Manvinder Bisla (wk),Gautam Gambhir (c),Jacques Kallis,Yusuf Pathan,Manoj Tiwary,Ryan ten Doeschate,Rajat Bhatia,Debabrata Das,Sachithra Senanayake,Sunil Narine,Lakshmipathy Balaji

Pune: Robin Uthappa (wk),Aaron Finch (c),Manish Pandey,Yuvraj Singh,Angelo Mathews,Raiphi Gomez,Luke Wright,Ishwar Pandey,Bhuvneshwar Kumar,Ali Murtaza,Wayne Parnell