Kolkata Knight Riders coming on the back of a dismal performance in the last game made a dash of the Delhi Capitals, decimating them by 59 runs to keep their chances of making it to the playoffs alive. It was a complete match for the Knight Riders as both batting and bowling department found unexpected heroes as well as an unexpected all-round performance from their marquee player, Sunil Narine to seal the deal for the team in Abu Dhabi.
It was the special combination of two spinners - Varun with the ball and Narine with the bat that turned out to be the game-changer for the Knight Riders.
For Delhi, they were beaten in all departments as their saviour from the last two games, Shikhar Dhawan departed early, having scored back to back hundreds in his previous games. Rest, no other batsman apart from Shreyas Iyer was able to put up a fight.
For KKR, batsman Nitish Rana, all-rounder Sunil Narine and mystery spinner Varun Chakravarthy were the main architects of the victory. For Delhi...well the entire team almost failed apart from probably the captain.
On this note, here is the list of hits and flops from the first game on the double-header’s day.
It was a dream game for the Tamil Nadu Premier League star, who didn’t just get a fifer but did it in a game that was a must-win for his side. Chakravarthy has been backed by his captains to deliver, and he returned the trust producing his best in Kolkata's most crucial game of their campaign so far.
Chakravarthy took out the most precious four wickets of Delhi’s chase in just two overs to break the back of the Capitals. Firstly he broke the partnership between Rishabh Pant and Iyer by dismissing Pant off 27. From there onwards, the flood gates were opened as he kept on taking wickets with two each in his next two overs.
The 29-year-old finished with the best figures of 5/20 in his four overs and also bagged the Man of the Match award.
Rana was also one of those players in the KKR team who was due for big innings and what a time he chose to showcase his skills. Having seen three big stars in Shubman Gill, Rahul Tripathi, and Dinesh Karthik walk back to the pavilion, it wouldn’t have been easy for the out of form batsman to stick there with another out of form all-rounder Sunil Narine. But as they say, the most difficult of situations, sometimes bring the best in you.
This happened with Rana too as the Delhi born took the attack to the opposition and scoring the runs in the wheel, added 115 runs off just 56 balls with Narine. Rana himself scored a brilliant 81 off 53 balls, before getting out on the penultimate delivery of the KKR innings. But by the time he got out, the task had almost been completed as the team had reached 194 runs.
The fact that Rana chose to play for his team after the sudden demise of his father in law, made this knock even more special.
Sunil Narine was included for the first time in the KKR line-up after his action controversy saga. Not having been in the best of touch off late, Narine made a thumping comeback by scoring a 32 ball 64 at an unbelievable strike rate of 200. He came to the crease ahead of the captain Eoin Morgan and also at a time when the chips were down for KKR at 42/3 in the 8th over.
But as was destined, Narine took the bowlers to the cleaners. Surprisingly, he wasn’t much tested with the bouncer and was served spinners to savour upon. But that being said, credit must be given to him for scoring those runs and getting Kolkata to a total that was very much the need of the hour. He hit six fours and four sixes in his innings.
It’s not every day that a certain Shikhar Dhawan would turn up and take charge of the batting. So on days that he gets out early; it is the responsibility of the other opener to at least play the anchor roles, if not of the destroyer right from the word go.
However, Ajinkya Rahane, who replaced Prithvi Shaw, wasn’t able to perform that role as he fell down for a golden duck himself.
The shine is finally coming off Marcus Stoinis as the Australian hasn’t been able to perform the way people have got used to him in this IPL. Today’s match was also clear evidence of that as he got out for six runs off six balls to Chakravarthy. In the last six matches, he has generally been average apart from the one against Delhi Capitals.
Even in bowling, he hasn’t really done well.
It’s time that Delhi Capitals wake up from the slumber and start taking things in their control before it gets too hot to handle near the Playoffs. They now have three games in their hand and from those three games, they need at least one win, which they would be looking to get in the next game itself, when they take on Sunrisers Hyderabad on 27th October.
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