KKR a step closer to playoffs
Mavi, Ferguson help rout Royals for 85 and seal an 86-run win to finish the league stage with 14 points
KOLKATA: Loads of patience from a team coached by Brendon McCullum, fast bowlers being more successful when they bowled slow, the ball taking so much time to come to the bat that sometimes you wondered whether it would change its mind and go elsewhere and a batter bowled round his legs but it was the off-stump that was disturbed: this was a T20 of contradictions.
As was Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) taking a giant stride towards the play-offs after being second from bottom when the Indian Premier League (IPL) resumed in the UAE. For the past two seasons, they were done in by an inferior net run rate making it the third time since being champions 2014 that they had finished fifth.
Like last term, it was Rajasthan Royals (RR) they had to beat. Like last term again, KKR did it in some style. The difference from 2020 is that KKR’s already healthy net run rate improved to +0.587 after Thursday’s 86-run rin and now it is for defending champions Mumbai Indians (MI) to work the calculator on Friday and try to pull off a sensational heist.
On a wicket where the ball stayed low—thrice in the first three overs, it hit the underedge of bats—KKR got to 171/4, the highest in Sharjah this season, because they played around Shubman Gill. This was where RR ended on 90/9 against MI so from the innings’ second ball, Gill decided he would step out and meet it.
The third ball of the first over bowled by Jaydev Unadkat was caressed past mid-off for a four by Gill. It was the start of things to come. To Chetan Sakariya, Gill used his feet and lofted the bowler for a six in the fifth over, one which ended with his opening partner Venkatesh Iyer executing an off-drive for four.
When RR introduced spin in the 11th over, Gill reached Rahul Tewatia’s legbreak pitched on offstump and swung it for a six, the shot ending with one hand on the bat. To Mustafizur Rahman, Gill crouched to meet a low delivery outside off-stump and swing it for a four.
By then, Gill was making the adjustments needed on a difficult track look easy. He did play and miss and get a few on the bottom edge but the only false shot that fetched him runs was a lemon cut that went for four and brought up his second successive halfcentury. Gill reached 52 off 40 balls and soon after hit Chris Morris, one of the four changes RR made for this game, so well that the drive arrowed into the stumps at the nonstriker’s end and saved a certain boundary. He hit one next ball, flicking Morris but fell soon after trying another cross-batted shot.
For a team that likes to start in fifth gear, KKR recalibrated their batting and ensured that they didn’t lose wickets; something RR did in clumps. The power play fetched 34 with only one big over, the fifth, going for 11. In three of their seven games in UAE, beginning with the easy win against Royal Challengers Bangalore, openers Gill and Venkatesh Iyer have given KKR starts.
All three fetched wins. The 79-run stand in 10.5 overs that ended when Iyer, who made 38 off 35 balls, tried to reversesweep Tewatia and was bowled, set KKR on course for a total that would have been 21 more than what they expected, according to Harbhajan Singh during a pitchside interview. Nitish Rana, Rahul Tripathi, Dinesh Karthik and even Eoin Morgan scored cameos quicker than run-a-ball and between the 11th to the 17th KKR scored 76 runs.
Encapsulating RR’s night, which ended with them all out for 85—the lowest in IPL this season—was the four byes Sanju Samson conceded in the 20th over, his dropping Tripathi, who made 21 when he was on five, and then a batting performance that never took off after Yashasvi Jaiswal fell reverse-sweeping Shakib Al-Hasan in the first over and Samson going in the second.
Back from a hamstring injury, Ferguson bowled fast and at the stumps as did Mavi. Ferguson took 3/18 and Mavi his IPL best of 4/21 on a night where the only thing RR won was the toss.
Brief scores: Kolkata Knight Riders 171/4 in 20 overs (S Gill 56, V Ier 38) beat Rajasthan Royals 85 all out in 16.1 (R Tewatia 44; S Mavi 4/21, L Ferguson 3/18) by 86 runs.