Picture Credit : BCCI
Kolkata Knight Riders will now face Sunrisers Hyderabad for place in the final of IPL 2018. KKR in the second qualifier beat a depleted Rajasthan Royals by 25 runs at an IPL encounter at Eden gardens Kolkata.
Put into bat by Royals skipper Ajinkya Rahane, Kolkata struggled early as they lost four wickets in power play . But skipper Dinesh Karthik , in fine form scored a important 52, Shubman Gill stroked 28 but the final push for the target was done by big-hitting Andre Russell, who hit a blistering 45 off 25 balls to help KKR reach a fighting 169/ 7.
Earlier , K Gowtham left Kolkata in tatters with a twin blow of Sunil Narine (four) and Robin Uthappa (three) and later Jofra Archer got Nitish Rana that put pressure on KKR. But Karthik, Russell and Gill revived the innings.
Jaidev Unadkat , continued his flop show despite a high price tag of 11. 5 cr. He gave away 33 from his two overs.
While Chasing , Royals badly missed power hitting ability of Jos Buttler, though skipper Ajinkya Rahane and Sanju Samson scored 46 and 50 plus respectively they did not score the runs at fast pace. Rahane while anchoring the side consumed too many dot balls and it hurt them at the end as others failed to get going . The Royals could manage only 144 / 4 in their 20 overs.
