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The battle of the basement dwellers between the Kolkata Knight Riders and the Kings XI Punjab, played at Punjab's home ground in Mohali saw the visitors completely rout the home side by 39 runs. Led by a superb 75 from Manoj Tiwary, Kolkata raised 183 before flattening the Kings to 144, and now move to fifth in the points tally.

The match began at 8 pm, even as Earth Hour, which is a WWF initiative to conserve energy for an ailing planet, was to pan out in India from 8.30 to 9.30. The global event involved voluntary lights-out to save electricity, but the IPL, despite its effort to go ‘green' this season, paid no heed and detractors will certainly hound it for showing such double standards.

There was a sea of changes for both languishing sides, the biggest of which was the inclusion of the two Aussies, David Hussey in KKR and Brett Lee in KXIP, for Owais Shah and Rusty Theron respectively. The other substitutions were Manoj Tiwary for Chetweshwar Pujara, Ajit Agarkar for the expensive Ishant Sharma and surprisingly, young left-arm offspinner Iqbal Abdulla for another of the same variety, the economical Murali Karthik. For Punjab, Sreesanth and Mohammed Kaif made way for Vikramjeet Malik and Karan Goel.

Lee at the top of his run-up and Gayle to face brought back memories of that innings of 88 in the World T20 at the Oval when the Caribbean batsmen had mauled Lee with some humongous sixes. The start indeed was explosive as the big man, after seeing off two balls, hit one over the infield on the off, then got a lucky edge to third man, picked 2 to midwicket off a no-ball, was beaten with a fab yorker on the free hit that still raced to the boundary through the keeper, and then muscled over midwicket to raise 19 off the over.

Shalabh Srivastava replaced Lee straightaway and got the crucial breakthrough, as Gayle, after 4 dot balls, pulled to deep square leg where Manvinder Bisla ran all the way from midwicket to dive and pluck a sensational catch. 18-year old Mandeep Singh, after struggling to find the gaps, mistimed a pull to mid-on in Srivastava's next over, to bring Manoj Tiwary to the crease.

Meanwhile, Ganguly, for the first time in the season, looked full of intent to score at a fast clip. His innings was not the most convincing one, but there was a clear effort not to repeat the mistakes of previous matches, where he struggled to get on with the scoring rate. He moved to the legside frequently to chip the ball over the infield and started with a couple of boundaries off Pathan, and then picked two more off Srivastava as the onus was on him to score.

Post the PowerPlay, there was a period where, with the slower bowlers Piyush Chawla and Malik in operation, the runrate was tied down as the pressure started to build. At 75 after 10 overs, the Knight Riders needed a move on and the next two overs provided exactly that. Ganguly first lofted Chawla with that ever so delightful vintage shot over long on before piercing the gap in the offside field. Tiwary then pulled Malik to midwicket and then, using the depth of the crease, hammered a yorker to the cover boundary. Runs continued to flow as Lee and Bopara conceded 10 and 13 respectively before the tactical timeout.

The break worked in Punjab's favour as Pathan struck with Ganguly's wicket, falling for an even 50 from 40 balls, and Chawla beat dangerman David Hussey in flight to knock the stumps over. At 130/4 with 4 overs to go, the Knight Riders needed some lusty hits to make it to 180. They got just the solitary boundary apiece in the next three overs and the innings seemed to be losing steam towards the end.

33 had come off 20 balls after the 16th over. 20 came off the next 4. Tiwary, after completing his fifty but consuming too many balls for it, suddenly went berserk, creaming 6, 4, 6 and 4 to finish the innings on a huge high. The momentum had shifted completely in the space of just about 3 minutes, and what had looked 170 was a possibly decisive 13 runs stronger.

The innings was weird in the sense that at no stage did it look like Kolkata were getting the big hits that are customary in a score of over 180. It helped that the first and last overs together yielded 40, which is over 20% of the score from 10% of the total number of overs.

Also, Kumar Sangakkara, after copping a fine of a cool $40,000 and a further $100,000 for the rest of the team for slow over rates in the previous match, was a worried man once more as the innings went on way past the stipulated time period.

In a surprise move, Yuvraj accompanied Ravi Bopara to open the batting. The start, though, belonged to and only to Kiwi speedster Shane Bond as he bowled an unplayable first over to get rid of Bopara and make a mockery of Yuvraj's attempts to put bat on ball. Ashok Dinda bowled a tight over from the other end before Bond cranked up the speed gun once more to concede just 3 in his next.

Yuvraj finally cut loose in the 4th over from Dinda, cracking two boundaries while Bisla also got one away to the fence. Ajit Agarkar's introduction saw Yuvraj smack a four and a six and suddenly, Punjab fans could hope for a miracle from him. Their hopes were dashed immediately after as Yuvraj lofted one into the sky, higher even than the floodlights and Tiwary latched on expertly to the swirling ball. Agarkar followed up with wicket of Bisla and Punjab were completely on the ropes.

With 3 wickets down, the two Sri Lankans, Sangakkara and Jayawardene had a herculean task ahead of them. Ganguly rotated his bowlers effectively, and Abdulla, Mathews, Agarkar and Gayle did not allow the two batsmen to get away even as the required rate assumed insurmountable proportions.

The pressure inevitable got to the batting pair and they fell in consecutive overs to finish off the last hopes for Punjab. Pathan and Karan Goel helped themselves to a few fours and sixes, but they were too few and too late.

The result was a comprehensive and much-needed 39-run victory victory for the Knight Riders and they now sit at 5th on the table with a much-improved net run rate, and have sprung back in contention for a semifinal berth. Tiwary won a deserved Man-of-the-Match award for his late surge. Punjab are all alone at the bottom with just a solitary win, and need some inspiration if they have to get off last spot. Their assignments only get harder moving forward as they travel to Mumbai to meet the table topping Indians next, while Kolkata head to the capital where the Delhi Daredevils lie in wait.

Mini Scorecard:

Kolkata Knight Riders: 183/5 (20.0 overs)
Manoj Tiwary 75* (47 balls; 8x4; 2;6)                   Shalabh Srivastava 3-0-23-2
Sourav Ganguly 50 (40 balls; 6x4; 1x6)                Irfan Pathan 4-0-42-2

Kings XI Punjab: 144/6 (20.0 overs)
Kumar Sangakkara 30 (27 balls; 3x4)                   Shane Bond 4-0-24-2
Yuvraj Singh 24 (16 balls; 3x4; 1x6)                     Ajit Agarkar 4-0-32-2

Also Read: Rajasthan Royals vs. Chennai Super Kings Match Preview

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