Seasoned West Indies opener Sunil Narine was the star of the night with an all-round performance, hammering a 39-ball 81 and claiming 1-22, as Kolkata Knight Riders thrashed Lucknow Super Giants by 98 runs in Match 54 of Indian Premier League (IPL) at the Ekana Cricket stadium, on Sunday (5 May).
In the new IPL normal of 200-plus scores, Sunil Narine struck a half-century and propelled Kolkata Knight Riders to 235/6 in 20 overs, the highest total at the Ekana Stadium. After producing the innings of the match, Narine came in the Powerplay and bowled a banger of a first over. There was a wide in there, but only three runs came off the bat.
Skipper K.L Rahul and the in-form Marcus Stoinis added 50 in 33 deliveries but in the eighth over off the bowling of Harshit Rana, Rahul handed an easy catch at deep point and got out on 25.
LSG seemed to have the thrusters on early in their innings, making 20 off the first 11 balls. But then Ramandeep Singh tracked a high chance back from point, sprinting full tilt then diving full length to get his hands under the ball, which had come off Arshin Kulkarni's leading edge of Mitchell Starc and KKR had their first wicket.
It was an all-round effort by the KKR bowlers as LSG lost their next four wickets – Marcus Stoinis (36), Nicholas Pooran (10), Ayush Badoni (15) and Ashton Turner (16) – for the addition of only 48 runs.
Out of these four wickets, Russell claimed two and Chakravarty and Narine shared one each. Chakravarthy was the star with the ball as he claimed three precious wickets for just 30 runs.
Power-Packed KKR Scored 235
Asked to bat first on a pacey wicket, Kolkata openers Phil Salt and Narine gave their team a solid start, raising their sixth fifty-run partnership – the most in IPL 2024 – in just 3.4 overs. The duo added 61 runs in just 26 balls as Salt raced to 27 off his first 11 deliveries before falling prey to Naveen-ul-Haq. Salt chased a wide one, and only got top edge to get dismissed for 32 off 14 deliveries.
Narine's carnage continued on the other end as he reached his third half-century and seventh of his IPL career of the season off 27 balls. Narine belted dangerously in the last couple of overs - but was dropped twice at the boundary line. Eventually, he was caught on the point boundary, but through the course of a hugely destructive innings of 81 runs (4x6, 7x6) in 39 deliveries.
Ramandeep Singh came at number seven and belted in the death overs and propelled KKR to the highest batting first total at Ekana Cricket Stadium. Three of the balls he faced he hit for sixes, one for four, a double off the next and a single off one ball, pummeling 25 off 6 balls.
KKR were clinical with the ball as they bundled out the hosts for 137 in 16.1 overs and won the match by 98 runs. Varun Chakravarthy and Harshit Rana claimed three-fers and Narine and Starc shared one wicket apiece.
Brief scores:
Kolkata Knight Riders 235/6 in 20 overs (Sunil Narine 81, Phil Salt 32; Naveen-ul-Haq 3-49, Yudhvir Singh 1-24) beat Lucknow Super Giants 137 all out in 16.3 overs (Marcus Stoinis 36, K.L. Rahul 25; Harshit Rana 3-24, Varun Charavarthy 3-30) by 98 runs.
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)