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Kolkata Knight Riders 163 for 3 (Uthappa 48, Karthik 42*) beat Rajasthan Royals 160 for 8 (Short 44, Rahane 36) by seven wickets
Jaipur: Kolkata Knight Riders ended Rajasthan Royals’ winning streak at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium, Jaipur crushing them by seven wickets on Wednesday night.
With this victory, third in four matches, Kolkata rose to the top of the IPL11 standings for the first time.
A dominant display all along by KKR Right from the time Dinesh Karthik won the toss and put Rajasthan into bat, Kolkata rarely put a foot wrong on way to a clinical victory.
That they achieved it without any contribution from star all-rounder Andre Russell with the ball or bat speaks volumes of their success.
Russell’s only moment in the match was when he leapt full stretch to grab Rahul Tripathi’s lofted shot over his head at short cover.
Having read the pitch well Karthik unleashed his spinners, including the part-timer Nitish Rana, and got fantastic returns.
Barring Sunil Narine, who went for 48 runs in his four overs, the rest comprising Piyush Chawla, Kuldeep and Rana bowled 10 overs between themselves and claimed four wickets, conceding just 53 runs. They then chased down the target without much ado on the back of two big partnerships.
The first was between opener Narine (35 off 25 alls) and Robin Uthappa (48 off 36 balls) that fetched 69 runs in 8.1 overs for the second wicket and then of 61 runs in 6.2 overs for the fourth wicket between Rana (35 off 27 balls) and Karthik (42 not out off 23 balls).
Rajasthan clueless against spin The hosts were largely done in by failing to post a decent total on board. Their batsmen, apart from captain Ajinkya Rahane (36 off 19 balls), floundered against the spinners.
Their only period of dominance against spin was when the nimble-footed Rahane went after Narine, smacking four fours.
Another factor that pulled them down was the early dismissal of their prolific run-getter Sanju Samson (7) by fast bowler Shivam Mavi. While defending their total, their pacers Dhawal Kulkarni, Jayadev Unadkat, Ben Laughlin and Ben Stokes held no threats to the rival batsmen.
Together they bowled 11.5 overs, conceded 116 runs and did not claim a single wicket. A forgettable outing for Rajasthan. Inside view Dinesh Karthik, KKR captain: “It feels good to get two wins on the trot.
Rajasthan’s next match is against Chennai Super Kings in Pune on Friday while Kolkata head back home to face Kings XI Punjab on Saturday.
