Robin Uthappa blitzkrieg conquers steep Pune target

Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) rode on the back of a Robin Uthappa blitzkreig at the Maharashtra Cricket Stadium in Pune on Wednesday in the 30th match of IPL 2017 to go top of the IPL table.

Gautam Gambhir sent the Rising Pune Supergiants (RPS) in to bat first, Rahane and Tripathi made a quick start with a 65-run partnership of 47 balls. Rahul Tripathi fell to Piyush Chawla after the spinner went through his defences.

Smith and Rahane kept the scoreboard ticking and took RPS over the 100-run mark. Uthappa affected a brilliant stumping to take Rahane out of the game on 46. MS Dhoni came to the crease and blasted 23 off 11 deliveries, continuing his good form from the game against sunrisers but misread a wrong ‘un from Kuldeep Yadav and got stumped.

Pune managed to set a target of 182 after stuttering in between, following a late surge from Steven Smith scoring 51 off 37 balls and Dan Christian scoring 16 with a few lofty blows and falling to Umesh Yadav on a full toss pulled to deep mid wicket.

Kolkata came out for the chase with Narine and Gambhir, the West Indian could not continue his surprise knocks and fell early scoring only 16.

Uthappa who had already notched up three impressive stumpings while bowling came into bat, but couldn’t get into a flow immediately. He was given a second chance when Jaydev Unadkat could not hold onto a catch at mid wicket while he was on 12. Uthappa made good use of the opportunity and used his clean hitting to notch up 87 off 47 in a match winning knock which included six sixes.

Darren Bravo came into bat after Gambhir  (62) miscued off Dan Christian and finished off with a glorious cover drive on his IPL debut, taking Kolkata Knight Riders over the Mumbai Indians in the table on net run rate.

Watch the highlights of the game HERE.

• IPL
• IPL 2017
• RPS vs KKR
• Robin Uthappa