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Kolkata Knight Riders finally ended their five-match losing streak as they put their play-ffs chances back on track with a seven wicket win over the Rajasthan Royals at Wankhede stadium in the 47th match of the Tata IPL 2022.
KKR skipper Shreyas Iyer won the toss and fielded first. And his bowlers came up with a fine display and reigned in the free flowing Royals batsmen. The orange cap holder and Jos Butter was out for ( 22) , Devdutt Padikkal ( 2),. Skipper Sanju Samson played well for his 54 but it consumed too many balls 47. Samson was not able to break free. The big shots and big overs never came for the Royals. Karun Nair looked out of touch with a 13 ball 13 . Wasting deliveries.
The move to send in Riyan Parag ahead of Shimron Hetmyer baffled many , Parag too like Nair did not strike the big blows in his 12 ball 19. Hetmyer threw his bat in the three overs towards the end he got to play and hit a 13 ball 27. The kind of aggression that was missing from the top order. Thanks to Hetmyer, Royals managed to reach a somewhat decent 152 / 5 in their 20 overs. The target was way 20-30 runs short.
For KKR the bowlers stood up : Tim Southee 2/45 ( 4 overs) Umesh Yadav 1/ 24 (4 overs) , Anukul Roy 1/ 28 ( 4 overs), Sunil Narine 0/ 19 (4 overs) Shivam Mavi 1/ 33 ( 4 overs)
In reply , KKR lost opener Aaron Finch early for (4) . The other opener Baba Indrajith was out for ( 15). But Skipper Shreyas Iyer came out and played a crucial innings of 34 ( 32 balls , three fours, 1 six) and was well supported by Nitish Rana . Rana (48 not out , 37 balls three fours, two sixes) then combined with Rinku Singh ( 42 not out, 23 balls , 6 fours and 1 six) to put on an unbeaten 66 run partnership in 38 balls to see KKR home. Rana hitting the winning run for 6. A relieved KKR reaching 158/3 in 19. 1 0vers. Rinku Singh was live- wire in the field too and took some good catches.
While KKR found their winning ways again. The Royals would be left to rue that they did not have the enough runs and the aggression while batting. Their batting line-up according to match situation needs to have look in ahead.
For The Royals the wicket- takers were Trent Boult 1/ 25 ( 4 overs), Prasidh Krishna 1/ 37 ( 4 overs), Kuldeep Sen 1/ 28 ( 3 .1 overs). The spin duo of Ravichandran Ashwin 0/33 (4 overs) and Yuzvendra Chahal 0/31 ( 4 overs) had a rare off-day giving away 64 runs their eight overs.
