In a chase, don’t write out the Rajasthan Royals if Jos Buttler is out in the middle. Just like he had done against Royal Challengers Bengaluru and Virat Kohli in the first week of April, Buttler stole the limelight with his second century of the current IPL season and outscored Narine. Buttler equaled Kohli’s undefeated century. Narine’s tonne was useless tonight because Buttler was still unbeaten on 107.
At one point, Buttler had gone 15 balls without a boundary, but he made up for it in the last few deliveries with a barrage of huge strokes. Nine are required in the last over.
Buttler struck Varun Chakravarthy’s opening delivery for a six, but he refused to take a single off of the next two balls. In the fourth ball, he attempted a reverse slog, but it was caught by the fielder at short-third man. Was the story about to take a turn?
To win, three runs out of two were required, and two of those runs came from non-striker Avesh Khan and a fatigued Buttler running like rabbits. With the exception of long-off, the entire pitch was in for the thrilling victory, which was the joint-highest successful chase in IPL history, thanks to a single off the final ball.
After Narine, Varun Chakaravarthy, and Harshit Rana each claimed two wickets, Kolkata may have felt they had the game won, but Buttler’s cunning hitting and Rovman Powell’s ballistic batting (26 off 13) kept the Royals in it.
Prior to this, Harshit had put an end to Riyan Parag’s outburst just as the 22-year-old was about to give the home team the advantage with his explosive balls 34 off 14 . But there was still hope for the RR faithful as long as Buttler was in the centre.
Yashasvi Jaiswal gave Rajasthan a strong start by scoring 11 runs off of Mitchell Starc’s opening over. But his bad form will soon become apparent. A wayward swing gifted Vaibhav Arora a much-needed early wicket for Kolkata, and Venkatesh Iyer was nicked in the slips. After making certain threats, Captain Sanju Samson was fired by Harshit for twelve.
Reborn Narine
During the toss, skipper Shreyas Iyer had remarked of Sunil Narine, “Whenever he comes in, he is hard to read and he’s got that poker face all throughout. We want him to perform the way he has.”
The chief destroyer of KKR, Virat Kohli, was outclassed by Rajasthan’s bowlers on a muggy Wednesday night in the bright lights. After smashing them all over the pitch, Narine reached his first IPL century in just 49 balls. After reaching 109 runs, the third-ever century for Kolkata will eventually be dismissed by Trent Boult in the 18th over.
The West Indies all-rounder hammered both Ravichandran Ashwin and Yuzvendra Chahal early in the game. In the sixteenth over, Chahal was hit for two fours and two sixes as Narine reached his tonne. Narine had already made his intentions clear when he reached 50 after hitting 13 fours and 4 sixes in an innings.
Narine, with assistance from Angkrish Raghuvanshi, found her groove following an unusually quiet beginning. An 85-run partnership between them helped calm the Knights down. To put Raghuvanshi’s impact into further perspective, consider that KKR was 21/1 in the fourth over when Phil Salt left, and they concluded the powerplay at 56/1.
Following Nitish Rana’s injury, Raghuvanshi, who amassed 278 runs in the 2022 U-19 World Cup, swiftly cemented himself as the KKR No. 3 player. After a languid beginning to the game, the Delhi native, who had already struck an explosive half-century against the Delhi Capitals, helped the Knights get back into the game by hitting three fours in Trent Boult’s fifth over and then another boundary off Kuldeep Sen. After the child was discovered by Kuldeep Sen off an Ashwin delivery for 30, the slaughter was put to an end.
The hot-cold season of Iyer
Even though Narine carried Kolkata to a commanding total on his own, captain Iyer’s inconsistent play this season will be a concern for Kolkata due to his lack of consistency as a batter. At the score of just 11 runs, he was out. Iyer now has just 140 runs in the IPL this season, with a 39* career best. With an extremely subpar strike rate of just 125.26, he has scored0,39,18,34, 39*, and 11.
Phil Salt, who scored 89 in the previous game against Lucknow here, was unable to have an effect. Although Parag dropped a dolly, he could have gone for a duck. In the fourth over, Avesh Khan caught the dangerous Englishman.
