The look on Eoin Morgan's face said it all after he was out run-out in a bizarre manner. That hapless smile on the skipper's face after a Rahul Tripathi strike hit Morgan's bat at the bowler's end with the latter well outside his crease trying to pinch a single. KKR never arrived. The score of 133 was never meant to be enough.
Yasashvi Jaiswal had his first hit of the season and maybe, you can call it the beginner's luck that he was dropped at point in the first over of the run case off Shivam Mavi. The drop freed Jaiswal up and he shed his inhibitions to lace a couple of fours off Cummins.
KKR did create a semblance of hope as Buttler fell to Varun Chakravarthy in the fourth over unable to read the in-drifter. In walked Samson and he peeled a couple of fours to get started. He looked unfazed despite Jaiswal falling after a brisk 22.
Dube and Samson added 45 for the third wicket but Dube's ambitious swipe across the line saw him slicing one to the man at short third. Tewatia's promotion to number 5 didn't yield the desired result as he fell for 5 but David Miller though showed a lot of calmness alongside his skipper to avoid any sort of drama. RR chased down the target in the penultimate over to pick up two vital points.
Earlier, Shubman Gill and Nitish Rana started with caution on a wicket which played a little sluggishly throughout. Gill survived a chance early on as he was dropped at deep cover trying to loft it away but his bat face turned taking away all the momentum. But that relief was short-lived as he was run out soon after.
Gill tried to cultivate some sort of a method to overcome his strike rate but that also didn't bear any fruit. Narine promoted to number four but didn't sparkle and Morgan's run out only added to the woes. Karthik tried but faltered and Russell fell in search of quick runs. The quick fall of wickets meant KKR only had 133 to defend which of course was too little on a Wankhede wicket where even 220 seemed chaseable. True, it wasn't the same 22 yards but KKR batting left a sour taste for their admirers.
RR had Morris firing for them with a four-fer and he did enough to stifle the opponents towards the end as the final flourish was denied. KKR never had enough to defend and another lopsided batting display could be seen as the cause of their defeat. Only one win from five games makes up for sorry reading. RR though would be more than pleased to have picked up a win after a couple of losses on the bounce.
Now, KKR move to Ahmedabad and they would meet Punjab Kings on Monday (April 26) whereas RR have a bit of a break before playing Mumbai Indians on April 29 in New Delhi.