New Delhi: Batting first, defending champions Gujarat scored 204 for four. KKR registered their second consecutive win by scoring 207 runs for seven wickets. KKR needed 29 runs in the last over to win. Umesh Yadav (five not out) took a single off Yash Dayal’s first ball to strike Rinku and the left-hander hit five consecutive sixes to give the team a memorable win. Dayal spent 69 runs in his four overs without any success.
Apart from hitting eight fours and five sixes in his innings, Iyer shared a 55-ball 100-run partnership with captain Nitish Rana (45). Rana hit four fours and three sixes in his 29-ball innings. After both of them returned to the pavilion, Rashid made Gujarat a strong hold on the match by dismissing Andre Russell (one run), Sunil Narine, and Shardul Thakur in the first three balls of the 17th over of the innings. But Rinku’s incredible batting snatched victory from the jaws of Gujarat. This is Gujarat’s first defeat in three matches. Rashid took three wickets for 37 runs in four overs while Alzarri Joseph took two wickets for 27 runs.
Mohammed Shami and Josh Little got one success each. Earlier, Vijay Shankar’s unbeaten 63 off 24 balls helped Gujarat score more than 200. Shankar hit four fours and five sixes in his unbeaten innings. Gujarat scored 45 runs in the last two overs, with Shankar hitting two fours and two sixes against Lockie Ferguson in the 19th over and three consecutive sixes against Shardul Thakur in the 20th over.
For Gujarat, Sai Sudarshan scored 53 off 38 balls while Shubman Gill contributed 39 off 31 balls. Both shared a 67-run partnership for the second wicket. Sunil Narine was the most successful bowler of KKR. He took three wickets for 33 runs in four overs. Suyyash Sharma (35 runs in four overs) got a breakthrough. Chasing the target, KKR did not get off to a good start. The opening pair of Rahmanullah Gurbaz (15) and Narayan Jagdishan (six) failed.
Iyer, who came in as an impact player in place of Suyash Sharma, hit a confident six against Shami in the third over. Continuing his aggressive approach, he hit fours and sixes in consecutive balls against Yash Dayal in the seventh over. From the other end, captain Nitish Rana reduced the required run rate by hitting two sixes against Joseph in the next over. Iyer hit a spectacular six against Rashid Khan in the 11th over and hit a four against Dayal in the next over to bring up his half-century in 26 balls. Completed the century of runs.
Iyer and Rana added to Gujarat’s woes by hitting a six each in the same over. In the next over, Rana hit Rashid for fours in consecutive balls, completing a 54-ball century partnership between the two. However, he missed the half-century and was dismissed by Joseph’s delivery by giving a catch to Shami. Even after the captain went to the pavilion, Iyer continued his innings and when he was dismissed by Joseph in the 16th over, the team needed 51 runs in 25 balls. In the next over, Rashid brought Gujarat back into the match by taking a hat trick. On his first ball, Kona Bharat took a brilliant catch of Russell while Sunil Narine was caught out playing a shot in the air. Shardul Thakur, the hero of KKR from the last match, got stumped.
Rinku Singh, however, gained confidence by hitting a six and a four against Little in the last two balls of the 19th over and then hit five consecutive sixes in the last over to give KKR fans a chance to cheer. Earlier, Rashid was leading the Gujarat team due to the ill health of the regular captain Hardik Pandya. After electing to bat first, Gill and Wriddhiman Saha (17 off 17 balls) once again got Gujarat off to a steady start. Saha hit three in the first four overs while Gill hit a four. In the fifth over, Saha waved Sunil Narine’s ball in the air and N Jagadishan took a brilliant catch to break the 33-run partnership for the opening wicket.
Gill hit Varun Chakravarthy for fours in two consecutive balls in the sixth over to take the team to 54 for one in the power play. He completed his 2000 runs in IPL by hitting a four against Narine in the next over. Sai Sudarshan, playing cautiously from the other end, hit the first six of the innings against Varun in the last ball of the ninth over and the second six against Narine in the 12th over. On the third ball of the same over, Gill completed the team’s hundred runs by running two runs. However, he got caught in the next ball while trying to play a big shot and returned to the pavilion by catching Umesh Yadav.
Gill hit five fours in his innings. Coming to the crease, Abhinav Manohar (14 runs in eight balls) welcomed Umesh Yadav’s new spell with a hat-trick four in the 13th over but young leg-spinner Suyash bowled him to give KKR the third success. Sudarshan completed his second consecutive half-century in 34 balls by taking a single off Ferguson’s ball in the 17th over. However, he became Narine’s third victim in an attempt to accelerate the run rate. Vijay Shankar hit a series of fours and sixes in the next two overs to take the team’s score past 200. Shankar shared an unbroken 16-ball 51-run partnership with David Miller for the fifth wicket in which the South African batsman’s contribution was just two runs (not out).
