Kolkata Knight Riders lost the plot while defending a below-par total as they faced yet another defeat to Chennai Super Kings by 5 wickets at Eden Garden tonight.
It was not a good toss to lose for Dinesh Karthik and CSK's skipper MS Dhoni didn't hesitate and opt to field first. KKR made three changes and brought Chris Lynn, Sunil Narine and Harry Gurney back to the playing eleven while CSK were unchanged for the match.
KKR were off to a flying start and were at 33 for no loss after three overs. Narine couldn't do much with the bat and got out for 2 in the fifth over of Santner.
Nitish Rana (21) looked in good touch before holing one straight to long-on off Tahir's bowling. Robin Uthappa (0) followed soon and scored a first ball duck in the same over.
Chris Lynn (82 from 51 balls) held his ground and went on to score his highest score of the season. He got out in the first ball of the 15th over. Single-handedly, he took KKR innings to 122 for 4.
Andre Russell (10) suffered a rare failure and became Tahir's fourth victim of the match as he scored a four, six and got out. After 15 overs, KKR were at 133 for 5 and the team could add only 29 runs in the remaining five.
Our bowlers weren't going anywhere. While Du Plessis gave CSK a flying start to their chase, Gurney came back strongly to dismiss Watson in the fourth over. Narine was brought into the attack and he straight away scalped the danger man - Du Plessis (24) in a wicket maiden over.
Piyush Chawla was asked to bowl the 10th over and the leggie struck in his very first ball and sent Rayudu back to CSK's dugout. Kedar Jadhav played a short 20-run cameo before Chawla caught him plumb in front of the wicket in his next over.
Wicket of MS Dhoni brought us back in the game with CSK needing 41 runs in four overs. Harry Gurney was asked to bowl the 19th over. With three fours in a row and 16 runs from the over, all the hopes of defending a below par total were shattered and the visitors won it comfortably in the end by five wickets with two balls in hand.
KKR will look to pull things back when they face Royal Challengers Bangalore on April 19th at Eden Gardens. Probably the lack of runs in the death overs cost us this match. It's time to learn from our failures and take one match at a time.
Brief Score:
KKR: 161 for 8 in 20 Overs (Lynn 82, Rana 21, Tahir 4/27)
CSK: 162 for 5 in 19.4 Overs (Raina 58*, Jadeja 31*, Narine 2/19)
