Living up to its billing as one of the most evenly balanced team, the Dinesh Karthik-led Kolkata Knightriders (KKR) beat the less-fancied Ajinkya Rahane-led Rajasthan Royals by 25 runs to keep alive their hopes of making it to the finals of the Indian Premier League (IPL), 2018 T20 cricket tourney. KKR now meets Kane Williamson’s SRH on Friday at the same ground to fight it out for a place in Sunday’s finals.

The jam-packed and vociferous Eden Gardens crowd at Kolkata had come with huge anticipation of seeing the ‘home’ team (KKR) beating the Rajasthan Royals (RR) for the third time in the past seven weeks. This was a special win for KKR in many ways as it not only staged a remarkable turn-around while batting first after being asked to do so by RR who won the toss.

KKR was tottering at 51/4 in 8 overs when skipper Dinesh Karthik and Shubman Gill attempted a recovery after the top order consisting of Sunil Narine, Chris Lynn, Robin Uthappa and Nitish Rana exited within eight overs. Karthik and Gill added 55 runs for the fifth wicket in 6.2 overs. Andre Russel, known for merciless big hitting, joined him in the 15th over and though Dinesh got out for a well-made 52 off 38 balls (four 4’s and two 6’s) in the 18th over, it was left to Russel to give the ‘finishing’ touches to the innings which he did with his own inimitable style, hitting 49 runs in just 25 balls with the help of three 4’s and five huge 6’s.

KKR plundered 34 runs in the last 17 balls to reach a healthy, respectable score of 169/7. Dinesh played a captain’s knock in staging a recovery after the top order failed. RR’s Gowtham took two wickets; so did Jofra Archer and Ben Laughlin. Unadkat went for 33 runs in his two overs. In its reply, RR started cautiously yet aggressively as Rahul Tripathi and Rahane put on 47 for the first wicket in just five overs. Sanju Samson and Rahane took the score to 109 by adding 62 runs for the second wicket when Rahane fell in the 15th over.

At that time, RR needed 60 off six overs, a very gettable target as it had eight wickets on hand. However, after Samson got out at the very wrong moment, Klassen and Binny struggled to put bat to ball. Krishnappa Gowtham got to bat only when the team needed 40 off the last two overs. As it turned out, RR lost the match by 25 runs. Rahane looked distraught but had only himself and his batsmen to blame as they failed to come good in a crunch game.

A win would have given them a chance to meet SRH on Friday but RR has exited IPL, 2018 with this loss, proving its detractors that it was lucky in the first place to have made it to the play-offs ahead of MI & RCB. Andre Russel got the ‘Man of the Match’ award for his all-round performance.

Dinesh wasn’t celebrating the win in a grand manner as he knew that only half the well had been crossed. If KKR is to win the trophy, it has to cross the twin hurdle of SRH first and then the marauding CSK in the finals. Karthik knows very well that it would take some very special individual performances in back-to-back matches for KKR to hope to achieve this almost impossible task and hence the silence.

Brief scores:

KKR: 169/7 in 20 overs (Lynn 18, Dinesh 52, Shubman 28, Russel 49*, Gowtham 15/2) beat RR: 144/4 in 20 overs (Rahane 46, Rahul Tripathi 20, Sanju Samson 50, Klassen 18*, Piyush Chawla 24/2) by 25 runs