IPL: Pune Warriors End Their Disastrous Season With Yet Another Defeat

The Kolkata Knight Riders produced yet another commanding bowling performance on a treacherous wicket at the Sahara Stadium, to dispatch the hapless Pune Warriors to another defeat. Gambhir read the pitch well, and packed his bowlers with spinners and slow bowlers. All of them combined together to strangle the Pune batting line up.

Kolkata had an inauspicious start to their innings Gambir and Kallis departed early. But McCullum buckled down to play a responsible innings on a difficult wicket which took lot of turn, and where the ball was keeping low regularly. Shakib Al Hasan produced a whirlwind knock of 42 out of nowhere and propelled his team to 136 - a score which would be very challenging on that pitch. Wayne Parnell was the pick of the bowlers for Pune with 2 for 18 in his quota of overs.

In reply, Jesse Ryder began well and played some audacious shots. But the Warriors could never wrest any sort of initiative and were always behind the eight ball. The spin trio of Narine, Shakib and Abdullah tied the batsmen up in knots. Each of the batsmen looked ill at ease, and would have wanted to be some place else, than bat on that pitch. Pune never threatened to chase the score down and produced yet another rudderless batting performance. Shakib completed a man of the match performance with figures of 18 for 2 in 4 overs.

The win ensures KKR have the number 2 position to themselves, something that will serve them well for the play offs. As for the Warriors, it is the end of yet another poor campaign.