Kolkata Knight Riders scraped to a one run victory over the Royal Challengers Bengaluru at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata, on Sunday, April 21, 2024.
While the batters hammered 443 runs in total, the bowlers did their job to bring the contest down to the wire.
The best bowlers of the match:
Yash Dayal
Left arm pacer Yash Dayal (4-0-56-2) did well to keep Sunil Narine in check at the start of KKR's innings.
He started his spell with a perfect toe crushing yorker, literally smashing onto Narine's toes so much so that the left hander needed to be tended to by the physio.
Dayal followed it up with another low full toss that Narine got an inside edge to mid on for a dot. Dayal gave Narain no freebies. He kept his length full, peppering him with yorkers and bowling into his pads and Narine just could not get on with it.
He finally had Narine with a slower, wide, delivery that the batter threw his hands at, only to miscue and hit it to Virat Kohli at long off.
Dayal got his second scalp the very same over when Angrish Raghuvanshi chipped the ball high at mid-wicket where Cameron Green plucked out a superb catch to send the batter back before he could do any damage.
While Phil Salt and Venkatesh Iyer and later, Andre Russell, Shreyas Iyer and Ramandeep Singh sent Dayal to the cleaners, it was his shackling Narain that ensured KKR didn't put on more than they already had on the board.
Cameron Green
In his very first over he broke the blossoming partnership between Shreyas Iyer and Venkatesh Iyer.
Just when Venky was beginning to sink his teeth in, Green got his man the very next ball. He banged the ball in short, the batter went for the pull, he didn't middle the ball and the fielder gobbled the ball down in the deep.
Green kept the batters guessing with his variations and mixed his lengths.
Shreyas and Rinku Singh hammered him for two fours in the 13th over after he put down Shreyas off his bowling in the same over.
Shreyas went on to make a half-century but Green eventually had the KKR captain who hit the ball straight to the fielder at long off. Green's impactful bowling saw him give 35 runs in his 4 overs with 2 wickets to boot. Shreyas's dismissal ensured KKR would not go near the 250 run mark.
Andre Russell
Cometh the hour, cometh the man and Andre Russell stands up and makes himself count when called to act.
Chasing 223 for victory, RCB lost the openers early. Will Jacks and Rajat Patidar put the visitors back in the chase.
The batters were going great guns with Jacks getting his maiden IPL 50 off just 29 deliveries.
With Mitchell Starc, Impact Sub Suyash Sharma and Varun taken for runs, RCB were nicely placed at 137 for 2 in 11 overs.
Russell came into the attack and struck with the very first ball. He bowled it in the slot and Jacks flat batted it straight to long on.
Two balls later, he had Patidar who got a leading edge and was caught at backward point.
He gave just 9 runs in his next over with RCB's required run rate climbing.
Russell came back to dismiss danger man Dinesh Karthik for 25 in the 19th over to all but end RCB's hopes. The big West Indian finished with figures of 3 for 25 off his 3 overs.
Sunil Narine
Narine couldn't do much with the bat but made up for it with the ball in hand.
He came on to bowl in the 5th over and gave just 7 runs.
In his next over, he bowled full and on good length and Jacks and Patidar got only four singles.
He came back for a second spell in the 11th over, but was clobbered for 15 runs by Patidar who brought up his 50 with a six off the last ball of that over.
In the next over Narine was slogged for a six over deep mid wicket before he had Green removed for just six. Narine then took out Mahipal Lomror, who got a leading edge and handed a return catch to the bowler.
These two wickets further dented RCB's chase leaving Dinesh Karthik a lot to do at the back end and RCB falling short by one run.
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