Mumbai : Rajasthan Royals defeated Kolkata Knight Riders by seven runs in an Indian Premier League match here on Monday. Put into bat, RR rode on Jos Buttler’s 61-ball 103 innings, which was studded with nine boundaries and five maximums, to post a challenging 217 for five.
Sanju Samson (38 off 19 balls), Shimron Hetmyer (26 not out off 13 balls), and Devdutt Padikkal (24 off 18 balls) also chipped with useful contributions.
In reply, Shreyas Iyer blasted 85 off 51 balls and Aaron Finch scored 58 off 28 balls but KKR were eventually bowled out for 210 in 19.4 overs.
Yuzvendra Chahal was the most successful bowler for RR, claiming five wickets for 40 in his quota of four overs, while Obed McCoy (2/41) snapped two wickets in the decisive final over.
Earlier, Sunil Narine (2/21), Pat Cummins (1/50), Shivam Mavi (1/34) and Andre Russell (1/29 in 2 overs) were among wickets for KKR.
Yuzvendra Chahal | Man of the Match, said, ‘ I had to take wickets in this match to change the result. I worked on my bowling. I spoke to the coaches and the skipper. I was thinking of a googly but then I didn’t want to take a chance. Would have been a happy with a dot ball as well on my hat-trick ball. My googly was coming out well and sent it down to Venkatesh Iyer.’
Sanju Samson, Winning captain, said, ‘ It got tensed. The quality of players made it very interesting. Very happy for the win. There are some things that need to used at the right time. You need to be smart enough to slow it down. I respect KKR as a unit. We never thought we were in the game. I think I don’t need to talk much about individuals. We are lucky to have great players. Special mention to Ashwin for his delivery to Russell. And McCoy is an interesting guy. He doesn’t talk much but seems to be in control over his bowling skills.’
Shreyas Iyer, losing captain, said, ‘I think from the start we got, we really were going well according to the run-rate. Finchy was good but once he was out, we slowed down a bit. We lacked a bit over there, but it’s a part of the game. Unfortunately we couldn’t click. My plan was to bat through the end, the opposite batsman had to take it on from ball one. The matchup Rana had was with Chahal. He did not time that and it happens.
He [Buttler] started a bit slow and after that he just went off. The way he manoeuvres the ball, he is a classy batsman. Kudos to the way he batted. If we had got him out early, the scoreboard would’ve looked very different. Dew didn’t play a big role tonight. Amazing wicket to bat on. Unfortunately Brabourne hasn’t been great for us. Hopefully we will come back hard in the coming games. There is a lot of pressure and I love pressure. I just wanted to set an example, doesn’t matter whatever score they get. If they can get it, I can get it as well. That’s how I was thinking.’