An all-round domination by Kolkata Knight Riders, led by Sunil Narine‘s all-round performance, helped Kolkata Knight Riders register a thumping 98-run win over Lucknow Super Giants on Sunday and move to the top spot on the points table. Sunil Narine crashed 81 off 39 deliveries and Ramandeep Singh got only six balls to face and smashed 25 in those as KKR scored the highest total at Ekana ie:235 for 6 which proved too much for the bowlers.
Sunil Narine was handy with the ball too giving away meagre runs in the follow up to his innings of 81 which empowered KKR to the top spot in the competition as of now.
Pitch and Toss
“A gentle breeze blowing across the ground. This is one of the biggest grounds in India. Straight down the ground is 76m, square boundaries – 68m and 61m. The dimensions will make a bit of a difference, we’ve seen the ball into the surface being used particularly with one side bigger than the other right throughout this tournament. When we come to the wicket, this is the third time that this surface is being used. There’s a hint of green grass on it, but there are some bare red patches.
We expect it to slow down a little bit more than what it might have in the past. Anywhere around that 190-200 will be a good score batting first. First time 199 was defended, second time 176 was easily chased down. The last time when Lucknow played here, the ball just held in the surface, particularly for the spinners.
With a real good quality spin attack in both line-ups, that will play a big part in tonight’s game. I reckon the team that wins the toss will still want to field first because of the dew factor and teams have chased big scores down.” reckons Ravi Shastri and Aaron Finch in the pitch report.
LSG skipper KL Rahul won the toss and chose to bowl first making one change in the squad bringing in Yash Thakur for Mayank Yadav. KKR skipper Shreyas Iyer batting first made no changes in the squad.
Sunil Narine, Phil Salt continue the demolition job in the powerplay
Phil Salt and Sunil Narine continued their good run at the top and provided KKR with another explosive start. While Salt got going with a streaky boundary off the first ball, Sunil Narine tore into Naveen ul Haq in the third over. Unlike what’s been the norm, the duo relied more on boundaries than sixes as they powered along to 61 runs in 25 balls before Salt departed. Yash Thakur bowled a stingy first over to end the powerplay, but KKR amassed the most runs by any side against LSG this season in this phase.
Salt was the first aggressor, hitting 24 off the first nine balls he faced. But he was soon out for 32 off 14, and from then, it was the Narine show. Sunil Narine warmed up with five fours, then started getting the big hits going at the end of the fourth over, bludgeoning a Mohsin Khan short ball over deep square-leg, clubbing Krunal Pandya over deep midwicket not long after, and later thrashing Yash Thakur over the square-leg boundary.
Sunil Narine explodes but LSG strike back in the middle overs.
Once the field restrictions were, Sunil Narine went on a rampage, willing to take on the short balls. The most brutal of those attacks came against Marcus Stoinis, who was smashed for three sixes in four balls of the 11th over. Angkrish Raghuvanshi too joined the attack, but only briefly, content to turn the strike over and allowing the southpaw to free his hands. Sunil Narine had his share of luck, with Devdutt Padikkal holding on to a catch at long off but tripping over the ropes.
One delivery later he cut to short third where Mohsin Khan’s diving effort wasn’t good enough for him to latch on to the ball. However, he couldn’t take advantage of the opportunities and was eventually dismissed in the next over, holing out to Padikkal at the same position off Ravi Bishnoi’s wrong ‘un. Andre Russell stay was brief but it forced the bowlers to spray in their lines.
In the middle overs, Sunil Narine dealt almost exclusively in sixes, and by the end of his stay, Sunil Narine had walloped seven, to go with six fours. Sunil Narine holed out to long-off attempting another six off LSG’s best bowler Ravi Bishnoi, who was the only one to finish with an economy rate lower than 11.
Ramandeep Singh plays a cameo to remember as KKR reaches 235 for 6 after 20 overs
LSG had a good period between overs 14 and 18, where they conceded only 45 while taking three wickets. Thanks to Sunil Narine, Salt and Raghuvanshi, with whom Sunil Narine shared a 79-run partnership, KKR were headed for a mammoth score. But the slight slowdown might have given LSG a foot in the door.
Ramandeep pushed the total back into gargantuan territory in spectacular style. He took a two in front of square on the leg side to start with, bashed a six over cow corner second ball, bludgeoned one over long-on fourth ball, ramped a four over short third next, then thumped a full toss over midwicket to finish the innings. To recap, he went 2, 6, 1, 6, 4, 6.
For most parts in the death overs, KKR didn’t find the acceleration that they needed. Raghuvanshi departed after a promising start courtesy a fine catch by substitute K Gowtham. Thereafter, Rinku Singh and Shreyas Iyer looked slightly scratchy and were unable to put away the slower deliveries banged at hard-lengths.
However, the LSG bowlers failed to bowl the hard lengths frequently enough and allowed Iyer and Ramandeep Singh to cash in on the full deliveries. Ramandeep was especially severe as he hammered three sixes and a four in his six-ball stay as KKR posted the highest T20 total at the venue.
Marcus Stoinis makes breezy start in the powerplay.
In pursuit of a big target, LSG went on the offensive early with KL Rahul cracking a boundary off the first ball. Despite losing Arshin Kulkarni in the second over, they kept the attack on. In the fourth over, Stoinis crunched three boundaries off four balls off Mitchell Starc, and two overs later, hooked Harshit Rana for a six, to give the chase a pump. It was the most productive powerplay for LSG this season.
As if scoring at a strike rate of more than 400 wasn’t impressive enough, Ramandeep also pulled off one of the catches of the season to get rid of Arshin Kulkarni. Speeding towards the boundary from point, he kept his eyes on a leading edge that had gone high into the air, and put in a spectacular dive to get his hands on a ball whose trajectory he did not seem like he would intersect. He took another catch at deep point later, to dismiss Rahul, the other LSG opener.
LSG crumble in the middle overs as Andre Russell and Varun Chakravarthy took over the bowling.
The wheels of the chase completely came off in the middle overs. It began with Rahul getting caught at deep point in the eighth over, and then the collapse never halted. Deepak Hooda was trapped LBW in the next over, followed by Andre Russell Stoinis and Nicholas Pooran. Narine and Varun Chakravarthy further added to their misery by sending back Ayush Badoni and Ashton Turner respectively. There was no letting off and in a bid to be on the offensive, LSG could never find the momentum.
With a required rate of almost 12 set from the start of the innings, LSG were always going to struggle, given the quality in KKR’s attack. They scored 13 off the fourth over, bowled by Mitchell Starc, but then Narine came in with a four-run fifth over, and by the end of the powerplay, the required rate was up near 13.
KKR bowlers cleaned up LSG to go to the top of the points table.
When LSG tried to hit out, wickets fell rapidly. At no point did they seem to have the measure of this chase. On a slow track, on which KKR’s slower bowlers were effective, Rahul’s wicket set off a collapse.
The Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) innings didn’t really take off. There was a 50-run second-wicket partnership between KL Rahul and Marcus Stoinis, but even that went at too slow a pace (they took 33 balls) to cause serious problems for KKR. Once that stand was broken, the innings fell apart quickly, the last nine wickets falling for 67 runs, as the required rate ballooned out of control.
Varun Chakravarthy and Harshit Rana took three wickets each. Andre Russell took two. And Ramandeep claimed two catches, the first of which was one of the most spectacular of the season. With the result inevitable, KKR bowlers took little time to snap the last two wickets, and even a DRS by Ravi Bishnoi didn’t help extend their stay in the middle as they folded up with 3.5 overs.
Presentation and Road Ahead.
KL Rahul the loosing skipper said:
“It was a lot of runs to be scored in the second innings. When you are chasing a big total, you are trying to go too hard and you end up losing wickets. Just a poor performance overall. We didn’t (hit our lengths on a consistent basis), just been a poor performance overall with bat, ball and in the field,”
“Sunil Narine and Phil Salt, in the powerplay, we’ve seen how they bat and they do put a lot of pressure on the opposition. Our young bowlers couldn’t handle that kind of pressure and he hit some really good shots,” he stated.
“That’s how IPL is, you come up against really good players and that’s when your character is tested. We weren’t up to the mark. The wicket was really good, felt like a pretty true wicket, there was a bit of bounce if you bowled hard lengths and back of a lengths, but nothing out of the ordinary and it didn’t seem like a pitch that was really bad. 235 was probably 20 or 30 runs above par and our batting performance was really poor,” he added.
“When you’re chasing such a big score, you’re under pressure, it’s always hard. We prepare well in advance and talk about the opposition batters, we know our conditions here and we do spend a little bit of time talking to the bowlers and talking to the batters trying to see what kind of plans we need to come up with,” he further added.
“Once we come here, it’s about execution and we went wrong in that part. Bowlers tried their best but the young group really … the sooner you learn, the better it for the team. We’ve made a couple of mistakes when we’ve come up against batters like Sunil and anyone that’s powerful,”
“That type of intimidation puts pressure on our bowlers. That’ll be the chat once we get back to the dressing room – move on from this game, see where we went wrong and try and get better. This is our last home game for us, so we are on the road for the next three games. It’s pretty clear for us, if you want to get to the top four, you got to win all the games. That will give us a little bit of freedom to go out there and be a little bit more fearless, little bit brave to take on the game,”
Shreyas Iyer the winning skipper said:
“The last 6 matches in the dressing room there has been havoc, teammates are coming in and asking skip what’s happening, we are losing tosses, but we are winning games that’s what matters. We had a great start in the powerplay. Sunil mentioned in the time-out that anything around 200 is good. A lefty-righty combination makes thing difficult for the opposition, the bowlers have to change their plans and that makes a difference,”
“It’s all about the freedom, to go out and express themselves. We want to go out and be positive whatever the situation is, sometimes it doesn’t work out but sometimes it does. They have been splendid for us, the way they are playing their shots is pure bliss. They are setting us up and giving is momentum and no matter what the situation is, we are playing with a positive mindset,” he added.
Sunil Narine Player of the Match for his performance said:
“The most important thing is starting well and it’s good to have the backing of the support staff. I think you have to pick your strengths and pick your spots, sometimes it works out and sometimes it doesn’t,”
“It’s going very well, Varun is picking up wickets, it’s making my job easier to keep things tight. He is a hard worker and it’s good to see him do well. The boys are anxious and eager to play, so no matter what the situation is they are up for the challenge and they are contributing for us,” he added.
What lies ahead for KKR & LSG
A proper lop-sided affair this one! KKR continue to go from strength-to-strength and are looking like a force to reckon with. The duo of Narine and Salt once again set things up for KKR and a couple of cameos down the order propelled KKR to a massive score. Once the visitors posted 235 on the board (highest T20 score at this venue), they had their tails up at the halfway stage. Kulkarni was nipped out by Starc quite early, courtesy a brilliant catch from Ramandeep.
Rahul and Stoinis played a few eye-catchy strokes and stitched a 50-run stand. But once the former departed, things went pear-shaped for LSG as they kept losing wickets in a jiffy. There was some turn available for Narine and Chakravarthy and they bowled with a lot of discipline. Russell took two important wickets of Stoinis and Pooran and that effectively killed the game. Rana was also on the money and picked up a 3-fer
LSG were quite good at home prior to this game but received a proper thrashing at the hands of KKR tonight. They have slipped to the fifth position on the points table courtesy a 98-run loss and that has dented their net run-rate. Things are getting tight mid-table as three teams are now locked in at 12 points.
Meanwhile, KKR are on a roll and have won three games in a row to rise to the top of the table. Their net run-rate has received a real boost and that augurs well for them going ahead. They have put one step into the playoffs but will be eager to keep the acceleration going. KKR will head back home and have a long break before facing Mumbai Indians at Eden Gardens on Saturday. LSG, on the other hand, will have to travel to Hyderabad to face SRH on Wednesday.