The Shreyas Iyer-led Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) locked horns with the Sanju Samson-led Rajasthan Royals (RR) in the 31st match of the Indian Premier League 2024 (IPL 2024) at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata on Tuesday, April 16.
After being invited to bat first, Sunil Narine and Phil Salt tried to provide their side with a flying start. Salt was dismissed for 10, but his opening partner Sunil Narine took his time before launching an attack on the RR bowlers.
He batted wonderfully and finally hit his maiden century in T20 cricket. Sunil Narine smashed 109 runs off 56 balls, with 13 fours and 6 sixes. Other batters also made decent contributions as KKR posted 223/6 on the board.
Defending the target, KKR bowlers were spot on and they kept picking wickets at regular intervals. Even though KKR bowlers weren’t able to dismiss Jos Buttler, they made sure to put pressure on him by not letting the batters at the other end stay in the middle.
Despite being in control throughout the innings, KKR allowed RR to complete the humongous run-chase as Jos Buttler played a blinder. The England captain slammed 107 runs off 60 balls, with 9 fours and 6 sixes, and helped his team win the match by 2 wickets.
Speaking after the match, Shreyas Iyer said that the defeat against RR was a bitter pill to swallow. Shreyas Iyer also felt that a defeat like that coming early in the tournament was good for them as something like that happening in the latter half would have been a huge blow. Shreyas Iyer said:
“(Was this game a bitter pill to swallow?) I would second that actually, emotions were a roller coaster, certainly didn’t think we will get into this situation. It’s a funny game at the end of the day, he was striking the ball cleanly and timing them so well, have to take it on the chin and move on.
“I mean at this point of time you see that you bowl your best deliveries, a little bit hit or miss and you are sent out of the ground, it’s good that it happened now rather than it happening in the later stages of the tournament, good learning for us.”
Shreyas Iyer showered rich praise on Sunil Narine for his all-round heroics in the match, saying that they were glad to have him in KKR. Shreyas Iyer said:
“(On Sunil Narine) He is a great asset to the team and he is showing it every game, he is that kind of player who capitalizes on each and every moment. I’m glad that he is a part of our team.”
On his decision to hand the final over to Varun Chakravarthy, Shreyas Iyer said that Jos Buttler was going berserk so they decided to take pace off the ball. Shreyas Iyer elaborated:
“Since he was striking it so well, I thought let’s take pace off the ball and gave it to Chakaravarthy and it’s high pressure when you have five fielders inside the circle, you basically don’t have idea where to bowl. It’s just about relaxing and rejuvenating, it was very humid as well today. It’s important to learn from our mistakes and bounce back. We have a few days break. At the end of the day, it was a great game, a few overs here and there but I’m really proud of the boys.”
Kolkata Knight Riders’ Current Position In IPL 2024 Standings And Their Previous Match Result
Ahead of their clash against the Rajasthan Royals (RR), the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) were placed at the No.2 position on the Indian Premier League 2024 Points Table. They had four wins and 8 points from 5 games. After the conclusion of the KKR vs RR clash, they have retained the second spot with 8 points in their bag.
Talking about their previous encounter in the Indian Premier League 2024, it was against the Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata on April 14.
While bowling first, the Knight Riders were right on the money as they restricted the Super Giants to a below-par score of 161/7 and then chased it down in 15.4 overs to register a comprehensive victory. The Shreyas Iyer-led side won the match by 8 wickets with 26 balls remaining.
Phil Salt won the Player of the Match award against LSG for his exceptional contribution with the bat and good glovework behind the stumps. The wicketkeeper-batsman slammed 89* runs off 47 balls and grabbed 2 catches as well. KKR skipper also contributed a run-a-ball 38 during the run-chase.
Talking about the bowling unit of the team, Mitchell Starc emerged as the top performer with his figures of 3/28. Other than Starc, Vaibhav Arora, Sunil Narine, Varun Chakravarthy, and Andre Russell picked up one wicket each.
