The IPL team Kolkata Knight Riders suffered the first defeat in the tournament in the match which was played yesterday against Chennai Super Kings at M.A. Chidambaram stadium, Chennai. KKR is currently at the second position in the points table with 3 wins in 4 matches and for the first time in the tournament, their batting line put up a poor show.
Ruturaj Gaikwad, the skipper of CSK won the toss and put KKR to bat first. Though Phil Salt got out on the very first ball of the KKR innings, Sunil Narine (27 runs, 20 balls, 3 fours & 2 sixes) and Angkrish Raghuvanshi (24 runs, 18 balls, 3 fours & 1 six) put up a good show and stitched a partnership of 56 runs in 6 overs. But the KKR batting line up fumbled as the CSK spinners bowled beautifully, wickets kept falling regularly and the whole team could manage only 137/9 in 20 overs.
The target of 138 was not a big one for CSK and they chased it successfully with 7 wickets in hand and 14 balls remaining in their innings. Ravindra Jadeja was adjudged as the Player of the Match as he dismissed 3 batters in a span of 8 deliveries and gave only 18 runs in his 4 overs.
After the match, during the presentation, the KKR skipper Shreyas Iyer (34 runs, 32 balls, 3 fours) admitted that they failed in assessing the wicket and the condition as it changed completely after the powerplay. He said that they had a great powerplay but they were not able to capitalize it, they lost wickets regularly and scoring runs was a little difficult.
Shreyas Iyer praised the CSK bowlers and said that they know the conditions pretty well and they bowled as per the plan. Iyer said that even the hard hitters found it difficult to score runs as the wicket changed a lot after the powerplay. He added that they tried to construct the innings but it didn’t go as per their plans, he said that they will learn from this defeat and introspect.
Shreyas Iyer said that in their opinion, 160-170 would have been a good score but it was difficult to keep the momentum going as they lost the wickets regularly.
The skipper concluded by saying that they will go back to the drawing room and learn from whatever they did wrong in this match but he is happy that it happened in the start of the tournament and he is sure that they will introspect and come back stronger.
The good thing for KKR is that they will play their next five matches at their home ground and will enjoy the home advantage.
