Kolkata: Captain Nitish Rana’s half-century and Andre Russell’s stormy innings after a fine performance by the bowlers led by Varun Chakraborty, Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) defeated Punjab Kings by five wickets here in the Indian Premier League on Monday to make it to the playoffs. Kept alive the hopes of making Chasing Punjab’s target of 180, KKR rode on Nitish Rana (51), Russell (42), and Jason Roy (38) to post 182 for five on the last ball. Rinku Singh (21 not out in 10 balls) gave victory to the team by hitting Arshdeep Singh for a four on the last ball.
Russell hit three sixes and three fours in 23 balls. For Punjab, leg-spinner Rahul Chahar took two wickets for 23 runs but could not win his team. Sam Curran took 44 runs in three overs. With this win, KKR has 10 points from 10 matches while Punjab Kings also have the same number of points from as many matches. KKR’s team is fifth while Punjab Kings is in seventh place.
Punjab had earlier shared a 53-run partnership for the fourth wicket with captain Shikhar Dhawan (57 off 47 balls, nine fours, one six) with Jitesh Sharma (21), Shahrukh Khan (21 not out in eight balls), Harpreet Brar. (17 not out in nine balls) and Rishi Dhawan (19 runs in 11 balls) scored 179 runs for seven wickets in flamboyant innings. For KKR, Varun Chakraborty (3/26) and Harshit Rana (2/33) kept Punjab from building big partnerships by taking wickets at regular intervals. Chasing the target, KKR started cautiously and scored 52 runs for one wicket, losing the wicket of Rahmanullah Gurbaz (15) in the power play. Gurbaj was lbw by fast bowler Nathan Ellis.
Opener Jason Roy (38) looked in good touch. He welcomed Sam Curran with three fours after hitting two fours each on Arshdeep Singh and Rishi Dhawan. He also hit Liam Livingstone for two consecutive fours but left-arm spinner Harpreet Brar caught Shah Rukh. He hit eight fours in 24 balls. Captain Nitish Rana and Venkatesh Iyer took the team’s score to 76 for two in 10 overs. Nitish Rana tried to increase the run rate in the 11th over with two fours and a six off consecutive balls of Livingstone.
He completed the team’s century in the 13th over with a four over Curran. Nitish also hit Rahul Chahar for a four but in an attempt to play a big shot on this leg-spinner, Iyer (11) was caught by Livingstone at long-off. KKR needed 58 runs to win in the last five overs. Nitish completed his half-century in 37 balls with two runs on Chahar but was caught by Livingstone on the next ball. He hit six fours and a six in his innings.
Andre Russell hit Ellis for a four in the next over while Rinku Singh reduced the gap between the ball and the run by hitting a six. KKR needed 26 runs in the last two overs. Russell hit Curran for three sixes in the 19th over with the team needing six runs in the last over. Russell was run out on the fifth ball of the last over, with two runs needed off the last ball and Rinku gave the team the win. Dhawan won the toss and decided to bat first. Prabhsimran Singh hit three fours in the very first over of Vaibhav Arora. Dhawan hit Harshit for two fours in the second over of the innings but the fast bowler had Prabhasimran (12) caught by wicketkeeper Gurbaj.
In the next over, Harshit got Bhanuka Rajapaksa caught by Gurbaj without opening the account. Liam Livingstone (15) hit Andre Russell for three consecutive fours but Chakraborty trapped him lbw to reduce Punjab to 53 for three in the sixth over. Dhawan and Jitesh then decorated the innings. Jitesh hit Suyash Sharma for two sixes while Dhawan hit Sunil Narine for two fours to complete his team’s century in the 12th over.
Chakraborty gave a fourth blow to Punjab by getting Jitesh caught by Gurbaj. Dhawan completed his third half-century of the current tournament in 41 balls with a six off Narine but was then caught by Arora off the bowling of KKR captain Nitish Rana. As soon as Rishi came, he hit Rana for a four.
He also hit Chakraborty for a six but was bowled by the leg-spinner. In the 19th over of the innings, Harpreet hit Arora for two fours while Harshit also hit a six in the last over. Shahrukh also hit Harshit for two consecutive fours and a six. In the last two overs, the Punjab team managed to score 36 runs.
