The Kolkata Knight Riders pulled off another close win after looking down and out on the back of outstanding bowling by Sunil Narine and Prasidh Krishna in the 24th match of the Indian Premier League 2020. The Kings XI Punjab really looked like a side that ran out of depth when pressure started to build up with ascending required rate and falling wickets. Captain KL Rahul made all the efforts to settle down in order to be there at the end to steer the team home, but the gamble of taking it too far in the innings did not pay off for him, and the Punjab side.
Here we decipher the best and the worst performers of the day from the match between KKR and KXIP.
Sunil Narine is redeeming himself every match after he was relieved off from the duty of providing the Knight Riders a brisk start with the bat in hand. He may be appearing a lot less threatening than he once looked against batsmen in the IPL, but captain Dinesh Karthik has made sure that his experience of bowling in tough situations and guile will not be wasted. He has been used strategically after 10th over when opposition batsmen have looked settled to tee off in the last few overs and the move has paid dividends in two consecutive matches for the Kolkata Side.
On the day when the Kings XI Punjab was steamrolling towards a comfortable victory with a lot of wickets in hand, Karthik once again turned to Narine and asked him to bring his A-game in the 18th and 20th over of the innings.
Narine accepted the challenge and derailed Punjab’s chase with a 2 run over along with a big wicket of Nicholas Pooran which turned out to be the turning point in Kings XI failing to chase down the target.
Back in the 20th over, Nine had to defend 14 runs to hand his team another comeback-win but he had to do it against Glenn Maxwell. Maxwell tried all his tricks but failed 2 runs short of KKR's 164.
Karthik, the captain had redeemed himself in the last game against the Chennai Super Kings when he scripted a magnificent turnaround to deny CSK an easy chase. However, an albatross was hung around his neck in terms of his own position in the batting order with a case for Eoin Morgan or Andre Russell being slotted above him.
But, Karthik silenced all his critics in an emphatic manner, and although he came to bat when his team was in a precarious position, he steered them to a defendable total. His signature shots such as inside out over cover and slog sweeps against spinners were back and Dinesh Karthik looked like the one who had caught the attention of the national selector for a finisher role.
The 29-ball-58 will do a world of good to his confidence as a batsman while another fabulous win when all looked down and out will boost his leadership credentials if there were any.
Arshdeep Singh was brought into the playing XI after the Kings XI Punjab’s bowling line-up started failing to keep control of matches. The young pacer from Punjab has not disappointed his coach and captain in the two outings that he has been given. In the crucial encounter against the Kolkata Knight Riders showed the glimpse of the control he has over his arsenal.
He was reintroduced in the 19th over with a task to contain Andres Russell, a job that surely is monumental for any bowler especially in the 19th over of the innings but Arshdeep kept his composure and backed his skills to come up trump against Russell.
The KXIP team must have had a strategy of bowling wide yorkers to KKR batsmen in the last over but it was down to Arshdeep to show how good a bowler he is with the execution of strategies on the field when bowling against some of the best in business. Safe to say, Arshdeep had the last laugh, dismissing Russell and limiting the damage to only nine runs in that 19th over.
It’s quite rare to rank a batsman in the flop category after a 58-ball-74 inning but the fact that KL Rahul was batting from the first over of the chase and still mistimed the acceleration, should put a question mark on the strategy both he and coach Anil Kumble have in mind.
KL Rahul’s strike rate has always been in question but he refuted the criticism calling it overrated after the last game against Sunrisers Hyderabad. He had said that his batting is dependent on the condition of the game but the match against the KKR proved that his idea of taking it too deep is not free from danger. Ultimately, he was dismissed in the 19th over by an impressive Prasidh Krishna and the Kings XI could not break the sling streak.
KL Rahul needs to correct many things in his team and a lot has to start with a clear-headed approach both in batting and team selection. At times, KL Rahul has looked perplexed and that is unforgivable for an IPL captain in a closely fought tournaments such as IPL.
Mujeeb was included in the playing XI with the hope of bringing control and discipline in the bowling department after repetitive failures from Chris Jordan and Sheldon Cottrell but Mujeeb has not been able to do justice to the amount of faith the KXIP management has shown in him.
With the team looking for a bowler who could provide breakthroughs in the middle overs while also controlling the flow of runs, Mujeeb’s outing against the KKR was abysmal, to say the least. He was guilty of bowling indifferent lengths and that did not help captain Rahul in setting proper fields. He was either too full or too short and the KKR batting line up was not to miss out on his ineffective bowling today and they handed out a proper hammering to the Afghan spinner talking 44 runs off his quota of four overs.
The Kolkata Knight Riders are well and truly back in the IPL 2020 while the Kings XI Punjab have all but themselves to blame for the place they find themselves on the points table. A good start from KL Rahul and Mayank Agarwal brought the team to the brink of ending the losing streak but the team looked nervous and when the team needed players to show temperament, they failed to seize the momentum and handed out an unlikely win to the Knight Riders.
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