Quinton hits the high notes as LSG secure playoffs spot
Rahul and De Kock’s record opening stand helps debutants go through, KKR bow out after desperate late charge by batters
Kock batted out 15 dot balls in the same innings in which he also smashed 10 sixes and 10 fours. Team coach Andy Flower said at the break, “At the end of the 18th over, we sent a message saying, ‘If you guys are too tired to hit the ball hard, you can retire and we’ll send some of our big hitters in.”
De Kock responded by scoring three sixes in the 19th over bowled by Tim Southee, who went for 27 runs in the over. In the final over bowled by Russell, de Kock hit four 4s. The final two overs produced 46 runs, the last five overs 88. When the LSG innings began, the openers were scoring only around 6-an-over after eight overs. Having been dismissed cheaply for three innings in a row and the LSG middle order struggling for runs, KL Rahul was doing as he promised, playing anchor.
Runs weren’t easy to come by for de Kock either in the early overs with KKR’S spin-twins Sunil Narine and Varun Chakravarthy finding good control. It was in the 9th over when de
Kock spotted a Russell slower ball early and deposited it over the square leg boundary that he changed a gear. At the other end, in the 10th over, Rahul began to go, lofting Tim Southee for two maximums between mid-wicket and square-leg. He finished unbeaten on 68.
In reply, after all the hammering and knowledge that even a win will not guarantee a top four finish to stay in title contention, KKR choose to be belligerent in their run chase. They needed to boost their net run rate as well to have a chance.
Despite early setbacks, through Nitish Rana’s 22-ball 42, Shreyas Iyer’s 29-ball 50 and Sam Billings’s 24-ball 36, they stayed in the hunt. But it was the brave hitting of Rinku and Sunil Narine (21*--7b) that stretched LSG to the limit.
Brief scores: LSG 210/0 in 20 overs (Quinton de Kock 140, KL Rahul 68; Sunil Narine 0/27) KKR 208/8 in 20 ovs (Shreyas Iyer 50, Nitish Rana 42; Mohsin Khan 3/20, Marcus Stoinis 3/23)