Rajasthan Royals on Wednesday played liked plebeians as Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) conquered them at their home ground SMS Stadium. The team failed to conjure the magic of the last game and gave in, thus ending their nine consecutive victory run at their ‘fortress’. The target of 161, set by the Royals was not substantial enough given their thin bowling attack and KKR cruised to seven-wicket victory.
The visitors lost Chris Lynn early in the innings but Sunil Narine and Robin Uthappa held the innings together. After the departure of the left-right batting combination of Narine and Uthappa, another left hand-right hand combination of Nitish Rana and Dinesh Karthik took the onus on themselves and completed the win for KKR.
Earlier, Sanju Samson, who had whipped Royal Challenger Bangalore (RCB) witless and subsequently got to don the coveted Orange Cap, failed to build another innings of great importance. After captain Ajinkya Rahane (36 off 19) became the victim of Dinesh Karthik’s flawless glovework, Samson joined hands with D’arcy Short but failed to flourish. However, pacer Shivam Mavi sent back Samson, who scored meagre 7 runs from 8 balls.
Royals thereafter were seen playing cautiously with Short anchoring the innings, but in a calculative manner that made it appear, he was in desperate search of runs to justify his reputation and price tag. Though he scored 44 off 43 balls, the innings lacked lustre and formidability. As KKR bowlers kept Royals’ batters in check with their guile and variations, Jos Buttler (24), Rahul Tripathi (15), Ben Stokes (14) and K Gowtham (12) chipped in with cameos that weren’t enough to dominate the visitors.
