An unbeaten half-century from Shaun Marsh proved to be in vain as the Kolkata Knight Riders moved to the top of Indian Premier League following Tuesday's six-wicket win over King's XI Punjab in Mohali.
After winning the toss and electing to field, the Knight Riders tied down the home batsmen thanks to some tight bowling from Morne Morkel, Umesh Yadav Shakhib Al Hasan that yielded just 17 runs from the first three overs.
Marsh came to the wicket following the dismissal of Manan Vohra (8) but he struggled for support after Mural Vijay (26) was bowled by Piyush Chawla.
The West Australian hit five fours and a six in his innings but watched on helplessly as Wriddhiman Saha, David Miller, Glenn Maxwell, Axar Patel, Mohit Sharma and Pradeep Sahu all failed to reach double figures.
Maxwell fell for four after his attempted switch-hit lobbed up to Chawla who took a simple catch at cover.
It continued the Victorian's poor run of form with the bat that has seen him score just 38 runs in four innings at an average of 12.66.
Marsh and Kyle Abbott each cleared the rope in the final over to give the King's bowlers something to defend, but 8-138 always looked under-par.
And that proved to be the case as Kolkata openers Robin Uthappa and Gautum Gambhir laid the platform for a comfortable win by putting on 82 for the first wicket.
Uthappa scored quickfire 53 off 28 balls with skipper Gambhir chipping in with a run-a-ball 34 before falling to a fine running catch by Maxwell.
Suryakumar Yadev then sealed the victory with a boundary from the first ball of the 17th over.
Share
