Captain Rohit Sharma struck a composed fifty before Jos Buttler hammered his way to a quick-fire 41 as the Mumbai Indians completed a six-wicket win over the Kolkata Knight Riders in their Indian Premier League match at Eden Gardens in Kolkata yesterday.
Kolkata has looked to have set a challenging total of 187-5 on the back of a 100-run partnership between Gautam Gambhir and Manish Pandey.
But Sharma scored a superb 84 not out off 54 deliveries with 10 fours and two sixes before Buttler added some late impetus to the innings as he faced just 22 balls in scoring his runs while striking three fours and three sixes as Mumbai reached 188-4 with five balls of their innings remaining.
Mumbai’s innings was given a fast start by Sharma and Parthiv Patel (23) as the pair thrashed 53 runs for the first wicket off 5.5 overs before Patel was run out at the keeper’s end after a sharp piece of fielding by the bowler, Brad Hogg.
Hardik Pandya (9) struggled to get going before Mumbai, somewhat surprisingly, elevated Mitchell McClenaghan, who had a top score of 16 in 86 T20 matches, to No 4 in the order.
McClenaghan’s promotion worked to a degree as he hammered three sixes in scoring 20 off eight balls before he popped a delivery from left-arm wrist-spinner Kuldeep Yadav to Colin Munro in the covers to leave Mumbai on 109-3 in the 12th over.
Sharma, who clipped the third ball of the innings for six, reached his fifty off 38 balls, while Buttler went on the charge in the 16th over, bowled by paceman Andre Russell, when he struck a four and two sixes off three consecutive balls, to break the back of the run chase. Buttler departed in the 19th over when he was caught at mid-off off the bowling of Russell with Mumbai needing just 13 runs to win off nine balls but Sharma struck the next three balls for four to make sure of the win.
Opening batsman Gambhir had earlier played the anchor role as he scored 62 off 52 deliveries with four fours and a six while Pandey was far more aggressive as he raced to 52 off 29 balls with three fours and three sixes. The second-wicket stand was broken when Pandey was outfoxed by a top-spinner from offie Harbhajan Singh (1-31) to send a leading edge up in the air with Harbhajan completing a simple caught and bowled effort.
The left-handed Gambhir, who was dropped twice with his score on 30 and 55, brought up his 40th T20 fifty off 39 balls while Pandey reached his half-century off just 26 deliveries.
Mumbai won the toss and elected to bowl on a slow wicket and left-arm quick McClenaghan struck in his first over when he had Robin Uthappa (8) caught in the covers.But Gambhir and Pandey blunted the attack to take the score to 121 in the 14th over before Pandey’s dismissal.
Russell was the next man in and the powerful West Indian launched an assault as he hammered his way to 36 off 17 balls with four sixes and a four before he bottom-edged a McClenaghan delivery on to his stumps.Gambhir was the next man to depart when he skied a delivery from seamer Pandya (1-22) over the keeper’s head with keeper Patel doing extremely well to take a running catch with the ball coming over his shoulder to leave Kolkata on 170-4 in the 19th over. Munro (4) was run out in the last over.McClenaghan was the most impressive bowler on show for Mumbai as he ended with 2-25 off four overs after having figures of 1-9 off his first two overs.

Brief Scores
Kolkata Knight Riders 187/5 in 20 overs (Gautam Gambhir 64, Manish Pandey 52; Mitchell McClenaghan 2/25) lost to Mumbai Indians 188/4 in 20 overs (Rohit Sharma not out 84, Jos Buttler 41)

Injured Simmons out of IPL, Guptill named replacement  
Mumbai Indians opener Lendl Simmons has been ruled out of the remainder of the IPL 2016 due to an injury to his lower back. New Zealand batsman Martin Guptill has been named as Simmons’ replacement. Simmons’ injury is similar to the one that forced him to withdraw from the first stage of the World T20 last month. He later joined the West Indies team for the tournament, in place of the injured Andre Fletcher, and scored a crucial 51-ball 82 not out in the semi-final against India in Mumbai.

IPL told to move matches from drought-hit state
Mumbai: A court yesterday ordered the Indian Premier League to move some matches from the drought-hit western state of Maharashtra over concerns that much-needed water would be wasted in maintaining the grounds.
The Bombay High Court order followed a petition filed by a non-profit group challenging the liberal watering of pitches at a time when the state is reeling under a severe water scarcity.
The judges said all matches due to be held after April 30 must be moved out of the state, although earlier matches could go ahead as planned, the Press Trust of India (PTI) news agency reported.
The decision means 13 matches scheduled to be held in the cities of Mumbai, Pune and Nagpur will have to be moved.  The “shifting of IPL matches to another state can be a beginning towards addressing drought situation in Maharashtra”, the PTI quoted the judges as saying in the verdict.
Thousands of people, mostly poor farmers, have had to leave the worst affected Marathwada region because of the water shortage. Last year around 1,400 farmers reportedly committed suicide in the region over crop failure from a lack of water, and an inability to meet loan payments.
The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) had on Tuesday sought to reassure the judges, saying only treated sewage water will be used to water the grounds. Two franchises of the cash-rich Twenty20 league had said they would donate 50 million rupees ($750,000) to drought relief programmes if the matches could be kept in the state.
The current edition of the IPL kicked off on April 9 with 60 matches spread across 10 venues. The popular tournament has  been plagued by controversies ever since its inception in 2008, with corruption and match-fixing cases often taking centre-stage.