The IPL match between Kolkata and Rajasthan Royals last night saw Rinku Singh leading the former team to a seven-wicket win. He scored 42 runs off 23 balls in an unbeaten 66-run stand with Nitish Rana.
The total score came off just 38 balls that helped Kolkata Knight Riders immensely to register the much needed win to avoid a sixth consecutive loss. Singh literally took control of the chase from the very beginning of his innings. Rana, who won the match with a six off the first ball of the last over, ended the play unbeaten on 48 runs off 37 balls. Previously, KKR sent out Baba Indrajith and Aaron Finch as their latest opening combination. Both the players failed and hence it did not work as expected.
The other pair, Nitish Rana and Shreyas Iyer put up more than fifty for the fourth wicket. They picked up the pace after the 10th over in spite of starting out slow. In the first half, KKR tried hard to manage keeping the dangerous batting line-up of Rajasthan Royals relatively silent. Shimron Hetmyer’s late charge and Samson’s half century could take the score only up to 152/5.
Jos Butler(22), Karun Nair(13), Riyan Parag(19) got starts but could not capitalise. Umesh Yadav(1/24) scalped one wicket, while Tim Southee (2/46) accounted for two and Shivam Mavi(1/33) and Anukul Roy(1/28) got one each.
The 47th match of IPL 2022 was scheduled to be played at Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai at 7.30 pm. Both the teams played their 10th match of the season against each other. KKR was placed 8th and RR was at 2nd position in the points table before the match.
This was a very crucial win for the Kolkata team. They would have been out of the playoffs race if they lost this match. It is important for the team to win all the other matches to gain edge.
KKR started their journey this season quite impressively by winning 3 of their opening four matches. But the momentum got lost soon after and caused 5 defeats on the trot. In their previous match against Delhi, KKR fielded pacer Harshit Rana and debutant keeper Baba Indrajith in place of spinner Varun Chakravarthy and out-of-form keeper Sheldon Jackson.
The match against Rajasthan was only the third match of the season for Rinku Singh. But he already has made a strong impact. He garnered 23 runs during a fine partnership with Nitish Rana against DC (Delhi Capitals) and 35 runs against Gujarat Titans.
Kolkata Knight Riders got an immediate boost when Devdutt Padikkal was dismissed by Umesh Yadav in the third over of the innings as the team elected to bowl first. In the next innings, Aaron Finch was dismissed by Kuldeep Sen in his very first over while Indrajith was removed by Prasidh Krishna in the last over of the powerplay. Later in the match, Shreyas steered KKR out of a tricky spot along with Rana. But a brilliant DRS call from Samson ended the KKR captain’s stay in the middle. Iyer tried to pull a Trent Boult but the umpire called it a wide despite a confident appeal from Samson. With the total of 8 points, KKR currently stands at the 7th position in the points table and hopes to play well in the upcoming matches.