8th April, Kolkata (CRICKETNMORE) - Defending Champions Kolkata Knight Riders beat Mumbai Indians by 7 wickets in the IPL cricket opener at the Eden Gardens, here.
IPL 2015 Scorecard - Kolkata vs Mumbai
Quotes
Morkel - "With the rain around in the past few days, there was some swing with the new ball. There is a good rhythm with my bowling and I hope it continues. Yes the pitch was a bit responsive and I hope it carries behaving that way. The crowds have been terrific and it's breathtaking to play before such audiences. We need to do our basics well and happy that we executed it today. First outing as a group after a couple of months has been good. Maybe we expected the track to turn a bit more but the spinners were still impressive, showing their quality."
Man of the Match - Morne Morkel
Gambhir - "Lot of credit to the entire unit. 168 was a tough total to chase but the way we did it proved that we're deserving winners. The pitch was a bit different from the usual Eden pitch. Bowling was terrific and it made the difference in the end for us. Suryakumar has been brilliant for us, he was announced as the vice-captain just before the game, glad to see him taking the responsibility. Our biggest strength is our home support and I hope we can give them more reasons to cherish."
Rohit Sharma (Mumbai Indians Captain) - "I thought we were probably a few runs short in the end. The pitch wasn't a normal batting track as there was some help for the bowlers, so you had to take time initially but then on was easy to bat. Our bowlers didn't quite get their plans well but there is time left in the tournament. The pitch here at Eden is always good for batting and we should have got more runs. Getting runs is fine but ending on the losing side isn't pleasing. Hope the guys learn from the defeat and improve in the other games."
Team news:
Mumbai: R Sharma , A Finch , A Rayudu , A Tare (Wkt) , C Anderson , K Pollard , H Singh , V Kumar , L Malinga , J Bumrah , P Ojha
Kolkata: G Gambhir , R Uthappa (Wkt) , M Pandey , S Yadav , Y Pathan , S Hasan , A Russell , P Chawla , S Narine , U Yadav , M Morkel