Delhi Capitals suffered their second straight defeat of the Indian Premier League (IPL) season, going down by 14-runs to Kolkata Knight Riders at the Arun Jaitley Stadium on Tuesday evening.
With the win, KKR snapped their three-match winless streak, remained seventh in the standings, and kept their slim hopes of qualifying for the playoffs alive. DC, meanwhile, remain rooted to fourth place, having been subjected to their third home defeat in the capital after four matches.
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Opening troubles continue for KKR
Kolkata Knight Riders persisted with the pairing of Rahmanullah Gurbaz and Sunil Narine at the top of the order as Quinton de Kock continued to warm the bench for an unchanged side. While they did stitch the defending champions’ highest opening wicket partnership of the season, it amounted to just 48 runs. It kept the record of KKR being the only franchise to not post a 50-plus stand at the top of the batting.
Who’s that IPL player?
To be fair to KKR and Gurbaz, it took something special from Abishek Porel, behind the stumps, to bring up the wicket. The 22-year-old plucked a neat low catch after moving to his right and got his gloves underneath for a safe pair of hands.
Venkatesh Iyer’s troubling season
Venkatesh Iyer, KKR’s big buy at Rs 23.75 crore, continued to struggle this IPL season. After clobbering 404 and 370 runs, respectively, in the last two seasons, he’s mustered only 142 runs so far after seven innings. He has averaged only 20.29 and scored at a strike rate of 139.22.
On Tuesday he fell to a nothing shot: swiped across the line to an angling ball from Axar Patel, got the bottom end of the bat and handed a simple take to Vipraj Nigam at cover.
The left-hander has scored four single-digit scores this season and been sent back four times without even facing 10 balls. If you need the math, Iyer’s got 6 runs for every crore that the franchise spent on him.
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Big start, slow finish
Despite the opening-wicket troubles, KKR had a strong start at the top. They took only 3.4 overs for their fifty – their fastest team fifty this IPL season. They raced off to 79 after the powerplay overs – their second-best powerplay show this season.
However, their close to the innings didn’t meet the desired flourish. Even though Rinku Singh and Angkrish Raghuvanshi put together 61 runs from 46 balls in the middle, only 45 runs came in the final five overs.
When Raghuvanshi and Rinku departed in quick succession, with just six balls between them, KKR lost momentum and scored 204/9 – helped in part by Andre Russell’s last-over six that almost smashed a window. DC pulled things back with three consecutive wickets in Mitchell Starc‘s final over.
DC’s woes against spin
Delhi Capitals had come into the match as one of the teams that had struggled significantly against spin. They had conceded 23 wickets to spin bowlers, only fewer than Chennai Super Kings (26) and level with Royal Challengers Bengaluru.
They bow out of their latest fixture as the team that has struggled the most against spin with that number ballooning to 29 wickets. Varun Chakaravarthy (2/39), Sunil Narine (3/29) and Anukul Roy (1/27) became the trio that hurt them this time.
Narine – leader and game-changer
In a game of small margins and every ball presenting an opportunity, Narine’s third and fourth made the big difference. With Axar Patel and Faf du Plessis going guns blazing and steering DC towards a possible win, he stepped up and took Axar out first and then Faf to extinguish DC’s chances of a win.
If that wasn’t enough, he stepped up as captain with Ajinkya Rahane going off the field to tend to an injury. As far as making your experience count, Narine did that and more!
