Picture : Twitter / IPL
Continuous changing of the playing eleven is hurting Kolkata Knight Riders big time in the Tata IPL 2022 and the result is all these to see as the team lost yet another match. This time to the Delhi Capitals by 4 wickets at Wankhede stadium Mumbai .
Delhi skipper Rishabh Pant won the toss and decided to bowl first . KKR began on sorry note losing Aaron Finch ( 3) and Venkatesh Iyer ( 6) early. Baba Indrajith ( 6), Sunil Narine ( 0) dismissal saw KKR slumping to 35/4 in 7.3 overs. Skipper Shreyas Iyer tried his best to resurrect the innings with his 37 ball 42 . He was out to a brilliant reflex low catch by Rishabh Pant . Nitish Rana was the other batsman to show intent with a fine 34 ball 57 . Dangerous Andre Russell (0) did not bother the scorers . Rinku Singh swung his bat around for a quick 23 as KKR finished at a below par 146/9 in their 20 overs . Their batting letting them down again.
For Delhi, Kuldeep Yadav was outstanding with 4/ 14 ( 3 overs), Mustafizur Rahman 3/ 18 ( 4 overs) , Chetan Sakariya 1/ 17 ( 3 overs) , Axar Patel 1/ 28 ( 4 overs) Lalit Yadav 0/32 ( 3 overs) , Shardul Thakur 0/ 32 ( 3 overs)
Chasing a modest target, Delhi lost Prithvi Shaw early for ( 0). Mitchell Marsh threatened to score big but holed out for ( 13). But in- from David Warner a 26 ball 42 ensured the chase was on track . Lalit Yada scored ( 22). Skipper Rishabh Pant was dismissed cheaply for 2 . Axar pate scored a quick ( 24) , But it was the big hitting Rovman Powell who finished the match with an over to spare with a six ensured Delhi did not lose any more wickets. Powell was unbeaten with a a 16 ball 36 ( 1 four and three sixes), Shardul Tahkur was not out 8 as Delhi reached 150/ 6 in 19 overs.
For KKR , Umesh Yadav bowled well for his 3/24 ( 4 overs) but lacked support from the other end. Harshit Rana 1/ 24 ( 3 overs), Tim Southee 0/ 31 ( 4 overs) , Sunil Narine 1/ 19 ( 4 overs) Nitish Rana 0/14 ( 1 over), Andre Russell 0/ 14 ( 1 over) , Venkatesh Iyer 0/14 ( 1 over), Shreyas Iyer 0/7 ( 1 over)
Kolkata Knight Riders have completely lost the plot with as many as 19 players being used in nine games and skipper Shreyas Iyer had no option but to admit that they haven’t been able to get their combination right in IPL 2022 KKR have used as many as five different opening pairs and the team looked far from settled after its fifth straight defeat .
“No real excuses, we have to go back and assess where things are going wrong. A lot of chopping and changing is happening (at the top of the order), it’s been difficult to set up the right combination, with all injuries not helping as well,” an irritated looking Iyer said after the match in Mumbai .
