Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) defeated Rajasthan Royals (RR) by 37 runs, by winning the match they now are no2 on the IPL table and RR moves down to 3.
Match Score
1st Innings: Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) : 174/6 (20 overs)
2nd Innings: Rajasthan Royals (RR) : 137/9 (20 overs)
Considering the pitch conditions, the KKR team got off to a decent start with S Gill and S Narine scoring 36 runs within first 5 overs. Thereafter, S Narine lost his wicket but S Gill and N Rana joined together to score 42 runs together. Following that N Rana(scored 22 off 17) lost his wicket to R Tewatia on the last ball of the 10th over. Their entire batting was about small partnerships and small contributions by their batsman. Out of the 8 batsmen who batted 6 players scored in double digits. Doing this they ended up scoring a decent score of 174 runs in 20 overs.
In reply, RR lost their captain-S Smith and their man in form-S Samson in quick succession. The wickets kept falling in regular intervals for RR and apart from T Curran's late 50 no batsmen were able to make a real impact in the match. In the end, RR managed to score only 137 runs in 12 overs. Like in batting KKR bowling unit to perform well as a team, P Cummins, K Nagarkoti, S Mavi & V Chakravarthy were their best bowlers but S Narine and K Yadav too chipped in with 1 wicket each.
Top Performers of the Match
Batsmen:-
T Curran (RR): 54*(36)
S Gill (KKR): 47(34)
E Morgan (KKR): 34*(23)
Bowlers:-
J Archer (RR): 18/2
S Mavi (KKR): 20/1
K Nagarkoti (KKR): 13/2
Player of the Match
The youngster S Mavi was declared Man of the Match for his bowling, he removed the dangerous opener J Buttler and S Samson and bowled at an economy of 5 runs per over.
Captain's Corner
S Smith:
The thing with S Smith in this match is that although R Tewatia took a wicket in the first over and gave only 6 runs he was never brought into the bowling again. It is true, shuffling the bowling unsettles the opposition batting but making use of your best bowlers and the players who are high in confidence is important as well.
D Karthik:
Overall, KKR had a good day, D Karthik made some good decisions like promoting A Russel up in the batting, he played a cameo and scored 24 of 14 balls. Their usual gamble of starting with S Narine as opening didn't work although later on, in the innings, he shuffled his bowling line up well. Usually, when a team wins the decision of captain looks good, however, in this case, Karthik did do a good job.
Overall, a solid performance by KKR in this match. On the other end, RR end had an off day. The major point of worry for them is the batting performance of their Middle-order, R Uthappa & R Parag have struggled with the bat in this tournament so far.