Went home, literally, for the six-wicket loss to Rajasthan Royals as good as sealed their fate in the Indian Premier League.
Missing in action in this mismatch were Shah Rukh Khan, Shoaib Akhtar (out with injury), inclement weather, and the fans — only 40,000-odd checked into Eden Gardens tonight.
Surviving a few hiccups, the visitors, in the end, comfortably chased down the modest victory target of 148, with six wickets in hand and 21 balls to spare.
Yusuf Pathan (48 off 18 balls) and Mohammad Kaif (34 off 31) turned out to be the night's unexpected heroes, stitching together a whirlwind 81-run stand for the fifth wicket. Kolkata's 'Mission Improbable' — they needed to win all three remaining matches – was raised briefly by Sourav Ganguly, and later crashed with him. The skipper batted moderately well, though a bit on the cautious side, and bowled his heart out — he dismissed the dangerous Shane Watson midway into the chase to swing the pendulum in Kolkata's favour briefly. But with two mighty sixes over long-on Pathan undid all that.
The Kolkata batsmen did not seem to have learnt their lessons, getting off to another stuttering start after being put in to bat. After scoring 32 off 34 balls — not exactly T20 statistic — Ganguly must have thanked his stars when Debabrata Das (31 off 20), Laxmi Ratan Shukla and Wriddhiman Saha got the hosts to 147 for 8. With some cheeky strokeplay, the later-order batsmen got 47 runs off the last 30 balls.
But full credit to Rajasthan skipper Warne, whose guile was on full display. The Aussie juggled his bowlers around — Sohail Tanvir-Munaf Patel-Shane Watson-Tanvir, the order in the first four overs — and made it nearly impossible for Kolkata batsmen to settle down. Result: just 50 runs in the first 10 overs.
If the unusually disciplined and accurate Munaf (2 wickets for 22 runs) dominated with the new ball, sending back Mohammad Hafeez and Salman Butt cheaply, the equally cunning Tanvir (3 for 26 runs) mopped up the tail and ensured the sudden late-order charge was kept in check.Warne himself may have gone for 21 runs off 3 unimpressive overs — Ganguly smacked him for a huge six over long-on shortly before holing out in the deep off Siddharth Trivedi — but his maverick captaincy was good enough to all but put the final nail on the Knight Riders’ coffin.