Chawla, Narine strangle RPS and help KKR to second place

The Kolkata Knight Riders jumped to second position in the VIVO IPL 2016 standings after they defeated Rising Pune Supergiants by 8 wickets in a rain-affected contest at the Eden Gardens. After rain curtailed the RPS innings at 103-6 after 17.4 overs, KKR were given a revised target of 66 in nine overs. Yusuf Pathan’s blitz then helped KKR knock off the target in five overs.

In the evening, RPS captain MS Dhoni won the toss and decided his batsmen would take first strike. But losing wickets at regular intervals meant at no stage did RPS have any momentum in their innings. Ajinkya Rahane dragged one onto his stumps in the third over, while Usman Khawaja holed out to square-leg in the fifth over.

George Bailey, who batted at number three, and Saurabh Tiwary added 41 runs – the best partnership of the innings, before the latter chased a wide one from Ankit Rajpoot and edged it to the wicketkeeper. Bailey, who would be innings top-scorer, perished in the following over when he was stumped off the bowling of Piyush Chawla; he made 33 from 27 balls.

It was an uncharacteristic innings from the RPS captain too; MS Dhoni consumed 22 deliveries, but did not hit one boundary. He remained unbeaten on 8 when the heavens opened up and brought a premature closure to his team’s innings. RPS’ innings was curtailed at 103-6 after 17.4 overs. The RPS batsmen hit only seven boundaries and two sixes in their innings, during which they batted out 51 dot balls.

For the home side, the spin pair of Piyush Chawla and Sunil Narine bowled well on a sticky surface and strangled the visitors; the leg-spinner returned figures of 4-0-21-2, while Narine had figures of 3.4-0-10-0 before the rains set in. Between them, Chawla & Narine bowled a total of 27 dot balls out of a total of 46 balls they bowled. Ankit Rajpoot, Shakib al Hasan and Andre Russell picked up a wicket apiece too.

KKR’s run-chase was a quick affair. Though they lost Robin Uthappa and Gautam Gambhir in the very first over, Yusuf Pathan blitzed his way to a quickfire 37 – aided with four boundaries and three sixes – and helped his team past the finish line in five overs.