An unbeaten fifth wicket partnership of 81 runs between Yusuf Pathan and Mohammad Kaif helped the Rajasthan Royals to an easy six-wicket victory over the Kolkata Knight Riders here on Tuesday at the Eden Gardens.
After Rajasthan lost four wickets at 69, Yusuf came up with an unbeaten 48 off just 18 balls. He struck five fours and three sixes. He was later declared the man-of-the-match.
Kaif supported him with 34 not out and they cruised home in the end, ensuring their place in the last four.
Kolkata are still not totally out but their hopes of entering the semi-finals have slimmed considerably.
From Kolkata, Umar Gul claimed two wickets for 30 runs while Ishant Sharma and Sourav Ganguly took one wicket each.
Earlier, the Rajasthan Royals restricted the Kolkata Knight Riders at 147-8 in the allotted 20 overs after Shane Warne won the toss and put them into batting.
Captain Sourav Ganguly (32), Debabrata Das (31) and opener Salman Butt (24) were the main scorers from Kolkata while Sohail Tanvir captured three wickets for 26 runs and Munaf Patel claimed two for 22.
Rajasthan played four seamers: Shane Watson, Sohail Tanvir, Munaf Patel and Siddharth Trivedi. They went in unchanged from the previous match.
Kolkata made only one change – Umar Gul in for the injured Shoaib Akhtar.
Teams:
Kolkata Knight Riders: Salman Butt, Mohammad Hafeez,, SC Ganguly, DJ Hussey, DB Das, LR Shukla, WP Saha, AB Agarkar, I Sharma, AB Dinda, Umar Gul.
Rajasthan Royals: GC Smith, SA Asnodkar, YK Pathan, SR Watson, M Kaif, RA Jadeja, SK Warne, Sohail Tanvir, M Rawat, SK Trivedi, MM Patel.