KKR Lose From A Winning Position
Holding an extreme view and carting the ball out of the park is what interests him most. He is a hard hitter at all times. Fasten your seatbelts and read.
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By Slogger
First publised on 2021-04-14 10:13:44
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Holding an extreme view and carting the ball out of the park is what interests him most. He is a hard hitter at all times. Fasten your seatbelts and read.
View all posts by this Author
Some matches do not end the expected way. The IPL match between Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) and Mumbai Indians (MI) on April 13 was one such match. After having restricted the reigning champions to just 152 runs after an incredible spell of bowling from Andre Russell (2-0-15-5) and having secured an almost unbeatable grip on the match by scoring 104 for just 3 wickets at the end of the 13th over, KKR needed just 49 runs from 42 balls with 7 wickets in hand and yet they made a hash of the equation, losing the match by 10 runs.
The way the Mumbai bowlers applied the brakes (or more correctly, the way the KKR batsmen choked) showed who the boss was. It was an inexplicable surrender by the KKR batsmen. It was also rare to see the likes of Eion Morgan, Shakib Al Hassan, Dinesh Karthik and Andre Russell al have a bad day in office on the same day. If any one of them had clicked, KKR would have won the match convincingly.
When Mumbai batted and Rohit Sharma and Surya Yadav were going strong, it seemed that the champions would post a huge total. Although Sharma was not connecting or timing well, Yadav was. But the KKR bowlers took wickets at regular intervals to peg them back. Russell later came back to clean up the tail to restrict then to a modest total.
KKR started well and both in-form Nitish Rana and Shubman Gill posted 72 runs for the opening wicket in quick time. But the middle order caved in and did not capitalize on their good work. The match showed why experts think that MI will retain the crown this year as their bowlers, especially Rahul Chaharm bowled exceedingly well in the death overs.
