Rising Pune Supergiants came close, but lost their second home game in a row and are now at the seventh position after their fourth defeat in five games. Led by Gautam Gambhir, The Kolkata Knight Riders’ have secured the top position with four wins from five games. They are tied on equal points with Gujarat Lions.

The home team got to a challenging total after a late surge in the last five overs which saw them squeezing 60 runs. Dhoni hit two boundaries and in the six in the final over after Morkel had boosted the run-rate with two sixes. The first 15 overs witnessed some sedate action with Ajinkya Rahane anchoring the innings. The Mumbai batsman hit his third half-century of the season in 42 balls. The visitors kept it tight in the Powerplay overs, giving away just 31 runs. Faf du Plessis was cleaned up by Shakib al Hasan and though RPS got a partnership going with Steven Smith and Rahane, the big hits dried up. The two put on 56 for the second wicket in 50 balls before Smith was run-out.

Chasing RPS’ 160/5, the visitors recovered from an early blow when Albie Morkel trapped in-form Robin Uthappa in front on the very first ball. The in-form Gambhir was looking set for another good score but an attempt to take on Saurabh Tiwary at mid-on for an non-existent second resulted in the Kolkata skipper being run out for 11. Despite the early wickets Kolkata managed to maintain a healthy run-rate thanks to Suryakumar, who was finding the boundaries regularly. R Ashwin’s expensive couple of overs in the powerplay enabled the Knight Riders to maintain a run-rate of close to 10, in stark contrast to Pune’s start with the bat. KKR did seem to lose their way when the wickets kept going down. At the end it was a last over finish with Umesh Yadav finishing the game by clearing the stands when KKR needed 5 off 4 deliveries.