Kolkata Knight Riders crush Rajasthan Royals by 7 wickets in the 15th match of IPL played at Sawai Man Singh Stadium, Jaipur just finished a few minutes ago. Dinesh Karthik won the toss and invited Rajasthan Royals into bat. KKR bowlers did a great job to restrict Rajasthan Royals to just 160 for 8. Chasing this modest target, Rajasthan Royals could not pick early wickets and lost the match by 7 wickets.
Kolkata Knight Riders captain Dinesh Karthik won the toss and elected to field first. In the first 3 overs, Rajasthan Royals only scored 9 runs. Ajiyanka Rahane then played positive strokes while Darcy Short struggled to time the ball. At the end of 6 overs, Rajasthan Royals scored 48 runs.
Dinesh Karthik produced a brilliant run out to dismiss Rahane for 36 ending a 53 runs stand for the first wicket. Last match top scorer Sanju Samson could not score many runs as he was dismissed for 7 runs. Darcy Short then played some aggressive shots against KKR bowlers. Nitish Rana got the wicket of Short in the 13th over.
Ben Stokes was dismissed for 14 while Rahul Tripathi made 15 runs. Jos Buttler scored a quick fire 24 off 18 balls. Rajasthan Royals was able to score just 160 for 8 in 20 overs.
Nitish Rana and Tom Curran picked 2 wickets each. Sunil Narine was expensive as he went for 48 runs in 4 overs.
Chasing 161, Chris Lynn was dismissed in the very first over for 0. Sunil Narine who came to open again along with Robin Uthappa played with positive intent putting pressure on Rajasthan Royals bowlers. At the end of 6 overs, Kolkata Knight Riders scored 53 for 1.
Both Sunil Narine and Uthappa added 69 runs for the 2nd wicket. Sunil Narine was dismissed run out for 35 off 25 balls. Robin Uthappa showed great aggression scoring 48 runs. Dinesh Karthik and Nitish Rana steadied the ship and put on unbeaten 61 runs to give Kolkata Knight Riders an easy 7 wicket win.
For Rajasthan Royals, K Gowtham was the pick of bowlers taking 2 wickets for 23 runs.
KKR 163 for 3 in 18.5 overs ( Robin Uthappa 48, Dinesh Karthik 42*, Rana 35, K Gowtham 2/23) beat
RR 160 for 8 in 20 overs ( Short 44, Rahane 36, Buttler 24*, Tom Curran 2/19, NÂ Rana 2/11) by 7 wickets.
RR captain Rahane said: We thought we were 15-20 runs short. This wicket was on the slower side, it was keeping low. I was batting well and was my responsibility to score big runs for my team. I just wanted my players to back about retaining the same XI.
KKR captain Dinesh Karthik said: It feels to get two wins in succession. Things are falling into direction slowly for us. The way Robin Uthappa batted was brilliant which set us the tone. Nitish Rana also batted and it was good to see him bat right through the innings. I want the players to be consistent enough in such a long tournament.
Man of the match Nitish Rana said: Both games were very important to us. I bowl regularly in nets and also in domestic cricket. IPL is such a big platform as the bowlers don’t bowl loose balls and need to convert the loose balls into boundaries.
This win helps Kolkata Knight Riders to go top of points table with 3 wins out of 5 matches.
Kings XI Punjab will take on Sunrisers Hyderabad in tomorrow’s match at IS Bindra Stadium, Mohali.
