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Kolkata Knight Riders

about 2 years ago

A fifth loss for Kolkata Knight Riders meant a fifth win for Delhi Capitals.

That's how things stood at the end of Match No. 25 of IPL 2021 as Delhi eased to a 7-wicket win over KKR in Ahmedabad on Thursday.

After being put in to bat first, KKR rode on the solo efforts from birthday boy Andre Russell (45* off 27) to reach 154/6 in 20 overs. Delhi barely broke a sweat and chased it down with 21 balls remaining. Majority of the damage was caused by Delhi opener Prithvi Shaw, who was in an absolute devastating form. He brought up his 50 off just 18 balls and his 41-ball 82 was enough to bury Kolkata's hopes of a third win.

The men in Purple and Gold struggled yet again in the powerplay batting overs, having managed just 45 runs in 6 overs for the loss of Nitish Rana's wicket. Shubman Gill played a 38-ball 43-run knock which wasn't enough to provide KKR with the impetus. Rahul Tripathi, who is known for his flamboyant batting, couldn't gather the momentum too, scoring 19 off 17 balls before being dismissed by Marcus Stoinis.

Tripathi's wicket marked a middle-order collapse as skipper Eoin Morgan (0) and Sunil Narine (0) departed within a matter of two balls. Russell even though started slow, unleashed his beast mode at the death overs. From 16 off 18 balls, he raced to a 27-ball unbeaten 45, leading KKR from 82-5 in 13 overs to 154-6 in 20 overs. In the meantime, he also ended up surpassing 6000 runs in T20s.

On the bowling front too, the KKR attack looked pale. Shivam Mavi, who has had an otherwise good economical campaign so far, started KKR's defence with a 25-run first over, which included six boundaries from the bat of Shaw.

All the KKR bowlers went for runs and struggled to grab wickets, barring Pat Cummins who accounted for all three wickets and also maintained a decent economy rate of 6RPO.

With this victory, Delhi have now moved to the 2nd spot in the points table, while KKR remained 5th, albeit with a dipping Net Run Rate.