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All-round Knight Riders thrash Super Giants

football05 May 2024 18:00| © MWP
By:Ross Roche
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Sunil Narine © sportspics

A stunning all-round performance from the Kolkata Knight Riders saw them thrash the Lucknow Super Giants by 98-runs in their Tata Indian Premier League clash at the Bharat Ratna Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ekana Cricket Stadium in Lucknow on Sunday night.

A big half century from Sunil Narine helped power the visitors to a strong 235/6 batting first, before three wickets a piece from Harshit Rana and Varun Chakravarthy helped bowl the hosts out for 137 in response.

Rana picked up 3/24 in 3.1 overs and Chakravarthy 3/30 in his four over allotment, while they were backed up well by Andre Russell, 2/17, and Narine, who made it a man-of-the-match performance by adding 1/22 in his four over spell.

 

The Super Giants chase got off to a rocky start when they lost Arshin Kulkarni (9) caught by Ramandeep Singh off the bowling of Mitchell Starc in the second over with the score 20/1.

But Marcus Stoinis, 36 off 21 balls (4x4, 2x6) and captain KL Rahul (25), steadied things and got them back on track with a 50-run second wicket stand.

 

With the Super Giants reaching 70/1 in the eighth over they were well on track to make a good fist of the chase, but three wickets for 15 runs then effectively ended their challenge.

Rahul gave Ramandeep Singh his second catch off Rana, Deepak Hooda (7) was trapped LBW by Chakravarthy and Stoinis skied Russell to Rana as they crashed to 85/4 at the start of the 10th over.

Only three other batters, Ashton Turner (16), Ayush Badoni (15) and Nicholas Pooran (10), reached double figures as regular wickets continued to tumble and the Super Giants chase petered out with their final nine wickets falling for 67 runs.

At the start of play the Super Giants won the toss and chose to bowl, but were put to the sword by Narine who was the key contributor for the Knight Riders.

The opening batter smashed his way to 81 off just 39 balls, crunching six fours and seven sixes, while cameos from Phil Salt, 32 off 14 (5x4, 1x6) and Angkrish Raghuvanshi, 32 off 26 (3x4, 1x6), helped them set the platform for the middle order to finish from.

It was a flying start to the innings for the visitors as Narine and Salt went at over 14 runs an over during the first four overs, including Narine tearing into Mohsin Khan’s fourth over, clubbing three fours and a six as 20 came off it, and both batters were cruising on 28 off 12 balls.

The Super giants finally made the breakthrough in the fifth as Salt tried to launch Naveen-ul-Haq over the offside, only to be fooled by a slower ball and give a simple catch to keeper KL Rahul with the score 61/1, with them moving it to 70/1 by the end of the powerplay.

New batter, 18-year-old Raghuvanshi, played the perfect support role for Narine as they shared in a 79-run second wicket partnership.

Narine was in charge and took his team past 100 in the ninth over, and then brought up his well-deserved half century off 27 balls with a nice dab past short third man for four off Ravi Bishnoi at the start of the 10th.

Narine took 19 off Stoinis’ 11th over, launching him for three sixes, and after hitting his fourth six in six deliveries in Bishnoi’s 12th over, his fun finally came to an end as he hit the ball straight to sub fielder Devdutt Padikkal at long-off.

The rest of the innings was then littered with cameos as Russell (12), Rinku Singh (16), Shreyas Iyer (23), and Ramandeep Singh, 25no off six balls (1x4, 3x6) all got stuck into the bowlers during the closing overs to get their side over 200 and to a very competitive total.

LUCKNOW SUPER GIANTS: KL Rahul (capt, wk), Marcus Stoinis, Deepak Hooda, Nicholas Pooran, Ashton Turner, Ayush Badoni, Krunal Pandya, Ravi Bishnoi, Naveen-ul-Haq, Mohsin Khan, Yash Thakur

KOLKATA KNIGHT RIDERS: Phil Salt (wk), Sunil Narine, Venkatesh Iyer, Shreyas Iyer (capt), Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Andre Russell, Rinku Singh, Ramandeep Singh, Mitchell Starc, Harshit Rana, Varun Chakaravarthy

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