Knight Riders Stay Alive With Big Win

Bangalore: Kolkata Knight Riders continue to stay alive, even if just about, in the Champions League T20. For that they first owe a big thank you to the ground staff at the Chinnaswamy Stadium, who with some immaculate work, managed to get a game going despite really heavy downpour that washed out Saturday's first game.

They can also pat themselves on the backs for some fine bowling at the death, which brought them back into the game, near electric fielding throughout, all followed by some clinical chasing with the bat for the second game in running which kept them ahead of the equation all the time.

The combination of the efforts gave KKR a resounding 22-run win (on D/L method) over the fancied Warriors after a second shower halted the game after nine overs of their innings. When rains intervened KKR were 83 for 1, the par score then being 61. Of course, they would have preferred a good win in a full match as that would have given them a healthier net run rate.

Warriors have only themselves to blame as they should have first and foremost got more than the 155 that they put up, seeing that at the halfway stage they were 77/1. Brett Lee, who gave away mere nine runs in the his final two overs at the death, was the man responsible for reining in the Warriors after which the old warhorse Jacques Kallis and skipper Gautam Gambhir took over with the bat.

Both batsmen were let off once each, with the Warriors fielding resembling that of RCB the other night.

Brief scores
Warriors 155 for 4 (Ingram 61, JJ Smuts 46, Boucher 38*)
Kolkata Knight Riders 83 for 1 in 9 overs (Gambhir 33*, Kallis 31*)
Results Kolkata Knight Riders won by 22 runs (D/L method)
MOM Colin Ingram (Warriors)
Points Kolkata Knight Riders 2, Warriors 0