Mumbai Indians
continued their march towards an unprecedented fifth Indian Premier League (IPL) title on Friday, brushing aside a tame Kolkata Knight Riders with eight wickets and 19 balls to spare as Eoin Morgan’s
captaincy stint started on a disappointing note.

Dinesh
Karthik stepped down as the KKR skipper, a role he inherited from Gautam Gambhir
in 2018, ahead of the match as he said he needed to focus on improving his
batting, having scored just 108 runs from seven prior innings.

Also Read: IPL 2020: Virat Kohli and Steven Smith go head-to-head in a ‘Royal’ clash

That wretched
form continued, however, as he played on a full, wide delivery from Rahul Chahar
onto his stumps to return to the pavilion having scored just four runs from eight
balls.

His
dismissal was the second in consecutive balls in that over, the eighth of the
match and a crucial turning point, as set batsman Shubman Gill – KKR’s
top-scorer so far – was caught in deep by Kieron Pollard while looking to clear
the long-on fence.

Earlier, a
blinder of a catch from Suryakumar Yadav in the third
over accounted for Rahul Tripathi’s wicket, continuing Trent Boult’s knack of picking wickets
in the powerplay overs. The Kiwi has taken a wicket in the powerplay of every
match so far.

Aussie
pacer Nathan Coulter-Nile then struck to remove Nitish Rana with a well-directed
bouncer to compound KKR’s woes.

However,
with the Kolkata outfit looking down and out by the 12th over – by
which time Jasprit Bumrah had affected Andre Russel’s dismissal with another
bouncer – a counter-attack was launched from an unlikely source, Pat Cummins.  

Also Read:Virat Kohli’s hilarious dance sets Twitter on fire, but Jofra Archer’s quip takes the cake

While his ability to clear the fence is
fairly well-known, nobody expected him to bring up his maiden half-century in
the IPL, although he had help from de Kock, who dropped
a sitter when he was batting on 36.

The lanky pacer added 87 runs for the sixth
wicket with skipper Morgan, who struck a couple of sixes in the last over – in which
Coulter-Nile conceded 21 – to help guide KKR to a respectable total.

It wasn’t enough, however, as Mumbai
openers Sharma (35 from 36) and de Kock (78* from 44) made the most of the
field restrictions in the powerplay overs to give their side the perfect launch.

Cummins could not repeat his heroics from
the previous innings, conceding 28 from three overs without picking a wicket,
as Mumbai’s opening duo brought up their first fifty partnership of the season.

The stand was broken at 94, with Suryakumar, Mumbai’s standout batter so far, quickly following his skipper back to
the pavilion after adding a run-a-ball 10.

Also Read: Dinesh Karthik hands over Kolkata Knight Riders captaincy to Eoin Morgan

A few lusty blows from Hardik Pandya and de
Kock in the 15th over rendered the win academic, which was completed
in the fifth ball of the final over.

The win, Mumbai’s fourth in a row, propels the
Rohit Sharma-led team back to the summit of the table with six wins from eight
matches.

They will look to keep that momentum going
on Sunday, when they take on Kings XI Punjab in Dubai after the Kolkata Knight
Riders face Sunrisers Hyderabad in Abu Dhabi earlier that day.