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Kolkata Knight Riders Rinku Singh strikes again at the end of the final ball against the Punjab Kings on Monday, May 8, at Eden Gardens in Kolkata. KKR pulled off a five wicket victory on their Shikhar Dhawan side leading them as the match fell to the wire.
The Punjab Kings set the home team a target of 180 after choosing to bat first. The entire KKR hunt seemed topsy-turvy and unpredictable.
Andre Russell’s attack (42 of 23) against Sam Curran in the penultimate round more than jumped KKR closer to victory. The West Indies all-rounder smashed three sixes off England’s bowling to reduce the equation to the six runs required in six balls.
Arshdeep Singh, who had conceded 31 of his three catches, didn’t make it look like a cakewalk for Russell and Renko. The left-arm pacer pushed the match to two runs off the last ball.
Renko was on strike after the KKR Fighters failed to steal the bye round as Russell was run out on the non-striker’s end. Arshdeep missed a yorker and missed delivering a full toss to the southpaw. Rinku Singh flicked it towards deep square leg back for a boundary as KKR got the two deciding points.
Shekhar Dhawan’s half century is useless
Punjab Kings captain Shikhar Dhawan scored 57 runs off 47 balls with the help of nine fours and one six. It was Dhawan’s 50th IPL tournament, thus becoming the third player to achieve the feat in the tournament’s history.
KKR spindles came into play to contain the runs in the middle. Five of the seven PBKS were kicked out by spin bowling. Varun Chakravarthy (3/26) was key to building pressure around the batters.
Shah Rukh Khan’s lower order PBKS (21 off 8 balls) and Harpreet Brar (17 off 9 balls) fueled a late on fire to push for a competitive 179/7 at the plate.
KKR has now jumped up three places in the points table to finish in fifth place with 10 points from 11 matches. The competition is wide open as all 10 teams have a fair chance of qualifying.
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