IPL 9 KKR vs RPS: Umesh Yadav, Yusuf Pathan keep Knights in hunt

Pune: Ajinkya Rahane cracked a superb half-century to power Rising Pune Supergiants to a competitive 160/5 against Kolkata Knight Riders in an IPL match at the  Maharashtra Cricket Association Stadium here on Sunday.

Rahane cracked four boundaries and three sixes in his  52-ball 67-run innings to anchor the Pune innings. Steven  Smith (31) also contributed and added 56 runs with Rahane for  the second wicket.

For Kolkata, Sunil Narine (1/32), Shakib Al Hasan (1/14),  R Sathish (1/20) and Umesh Yadav (1/16) picked up one wicket  each after skipper Gautam Gambhir won the toss and elected to  field here.

Put in to bat, the Supergiants lost their first wicket in  the fourth over when opener Faf du Plessis (4) was cleaned up  by Shakib. However, other opener Rahane and Smith stitched a 56-run  partnership off 50 balls to steady the ship but the Australian  was run-out when he went well down and the bowler Sathish  whipped off the bails.

New batsman Thisara Perera (12 off 9 balls) too could not  stay longer as he was dismissed in the 15th over when he tried  to play a cross-batted shot only to see his stumps disturbed  by a slowish Sathish delivery.

Albie Morkel (16 off 9 balls) then joined Rahane and  stepped the gas. It was the Mumbaikar who first blasted Piyush  Chawla in the 16th over. He then picked Umesh Yadav for the  same treatment in the next over. However, Rahane was dismissed by the Narine in the first  ball of the next over when the West Indies spinner caught and  bowled the opener. Albie then blasted successive sixes off Narine before  becoming a prey of Yadav in the 19th over. Skipper Mahendra  Singh Dhoni then provided some fireworks.