Kolkata, Apr 22: In a game that just kept swinging from one side to the other Kolkata Knight Riders eventually got over the line by one run courtesy of a runout of the final ball against Royal Challengers Bengaluru at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata
Rajat Patidhar and Will Jacks smacked half-centuries and kept the hopes alive for RCB in a gigantic 223-run chase however, the kept losing wickets in the middle overs. Though KKR would be relieved that they got over the line their bowling has been not up to the mark on more than one occasion tonight in the game.
Karn Sharma and Dinesh Karthik at the end tried their best to take them over the line but it was a step too far. All in all, with the defeat Bengaluru’s chance to qualify for playoffs is near impossible.
Andre Russell, Player of the Match, said Thanks to the almighty. I always back my bowling as I said earlier. Getting the ball at a crucial time, I knew that I had to come good and thankfully it happened today. Happy for the two points. When I was batting earlier, change of pace was difficult to hit. As a bowler that’s what I wanted to do. The slower balls were gripping and holding. Was happy to get the two set batters out and I think that’s what changed the game. Those two wickets from Narine were also very important and that’s what started the slide for RCB. When I look at the bowling equation, I had two left and I conditioned myself to bowl that (19th) over.
Faf du Plessis, RCB captain, said, It was crazy, rules are rules, Virat and myself thought that the ball was higher than the waist (on Kohli’s dismissal), I guess they measured from the popping crease, one team thinks it’s high, the other doesn’t. That’s how the game goes at times. Then the partnership, it was magnificent (on the Jacks-Patidar partnership), but when you don’t win too many games, some sort of panic sets in and the Narine over was game-changing. You don’t feel that you have time to settle down and bat (on the evolution of the IPL this season), the game doesn’t allow it to do that, obviously you have an extra batter, but in chases like these, you have to keep going. The match-up against Narine, I thought that was the game changing over. The small things, I am actually proud of the boys tonight, the way we bowled and fielded, we did give away a couple of big overs towards the end, but I thought we kept them down to a par score. We thought we’ll go hard in the batting powerplay, find those boundaries at the start of the innings’.