Lucknow Super Giants pulled off a stunning victory by the barest of margins. They beat Kolkata Knight Riders by two runs in a thoroughly entertaining high-scoring thriller. Lucknow’s openers did not even give the rest of the team a chance to bat, with skipper KL Rahul and Quinton de Kock batting through the innings to get their side to a total of 210/0.
De Kock seemed to play the innings of his life, eventually finishing on 140*. In response, it was a concerted team effort from KKR, where almost every team member contributed with the bat, as the game went down to the wire. Kolkata were not able to pull off the heist and LSG sealed a spot in the top two positions with an important win.
KL Rahul won the toss and decided to bat first. The decision turned out to be the best choice as he and de Kock were in no mood to be dismissed. De Kock was playing beautifully, while the skipper played his usual role of anchoring the innings. The KKR bowling was also quite poor to be honest, with Umesh Yadav and Tim Southee both going for quite a few. Even with the runs coming at a quick pace, the innings never quite went berserk.
The South African was going well, and even past the fifty run mark, was scoring boundaries with ridiculous frequency, with no botherations about the fielders. He also scored more than his fair share of sixes, getting 10 hits to clear the fence. He in no uncertain terms, raced to a remarkable hundred
The 18th over was the turning point of the innings. De Kock smashed Kiwi veteran Tim Southee for 27 runs in the over, including four massive sixes, following which he took Andre Russell for four boundaries in the 20th to single-handedly take his side to 210, while the captain was unbeaten on 68.
The KKR innings got off to a disastrous start. Venkatesh Iyer and debutant Abhijit Tomar both got dismissed by the excellent Mohsin Khan. Nitish Rana too couldn’t stick around for too much longer before Shreyas Iyer and Sam Billings came together in the middle, with the skipper looking in very good form.
The KKR skipper played a fantastic innings of 50 in just 29 balls to keep his side in contention even after the fall of early wickets. He was then subsequently dismissed by Marcus Stoinis, following which Russell made his way into the crease. It was just not the Caribbean’s day as he struggled his way though to an 11-ball five.
Rinku Singh and Sunil Narine, who were the two left in the middle after the dust had settled, looked unlikely to pull off the task, with the equation reading 55 off the last 18 balls. However, the two exceeded expectations in a massive way, reducing it to 21 off the last six.
Rinku struck 2,4,6,6 off the first four deliveries, as the KKR were inches away from victory. Nevertheless, it was not to be. Stoinis then picked up two wickets in the last two balls to give his side a nail-biting victory. The win puts Lucknow firmly into the top two spots and the Knight Riders will have been eliminated.
Brief scores
Lucknow Super Giants– 210/0 (De Kock-140: Rahil-68) beat Kolkata Knight Riders-208/8 (Iyer-50:Rana-44:Khan-3/20)
