Finance
Sunil Narine, a seasoned West Indies opener, was the hero of the night with an all-round effort, hitting a 39-ball 81 and earning 1-22 as Kolkata Knight Riders defeated Lucknow Super Giants by 98 runs in Match 54 of the Indian Premier League (IPL) at the Ekana Cricket Stadium on Sunday.
Sunil Narine hit a half-century to power the Kolkata Knight Riders to 235/6 in 20 overs, the biggest total ever at the Ekana Stadium.
After producing the match’s innings, Narine entered the Powerplay and delivered a banger of a first over. There was a wide in there, but only three runs were scored.
Skipper K.L. Rahul and the in-form Marcus Stoinis scored 50 in 33 deliveries when Rahul was caught at deep point in the eighth over by Harshit Rana and out for 25.
LSG appeared to have the thrusters on early in their innings, scoring 20 off the first 11 balls. But then Ramandeep Singh tracked a high chance back from point, sprinting full throttle and 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.
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 (4×6, 7×6) in 39 deliveries.
Ramandeep Singh batted in at number seven and blasted in the dying overs, propelling KKR to their greatest 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, totaling 25 off six.
KKR were clinical with the ball, dismissing the hosts for 137 in 16.1 overs and winning by 98 runs. Varun Chakravarthy and Harshit Rana both grabbed three wickets, while Narine and Starc each took one.
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.
Source:IANS
