- Tuesday, February 25, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
TWO-TIME winners Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) produced a thoroughly clinical performance in their final game of Indian Premier League (IPL) 2021 at Sharjah Cricket Stadium when they thrashed Rajasthan Royals (RR) by 86 runs to better their chances of making the playoffs.
KKR, who are led by England limited-over captain Eoin Morgan, finished on 14 points from as many games. Their win shattered the hopes of Punjab Kings who defeated Chennai Super Kings earlier in the day to revive their hopes for a playoff berth. The Royals also got eliminated. Sunrisers Hyderabad have also been knocked out. The battle is now between KKR and defending champions Mumbai Indians (MI) who are at 12 points and have a match left with Hyderabad. But Rohit Sharma’s team will have to win by a mammoth margin in Abu Dhabi on Friday (8) to overtake Kolkata on net run-rate. KKR’s NRR is 0.587 while MI’s is minus 0.048.
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Delhi Capitals, Chennai and Royal Challenges Bangalore have already qualified for the playoffs in that order.
KKR, who resumed their campaign in this year’s split tournament with a bang, were invited to bat first on Thursday by Royals captain Sanju Samson. Openers Shubman Gill (56 off 44 balls) and Venkatesh Iyer (38 off 35) gave them a good start to put 79 runs in less than 11 overs. Nitish Rana (12 off five), Rahul Tripahi (21 off 14), Dinesh Karthik (14 not out off 11) and Morgan (13 not out off 11) made modest contributions to take their team’s total to 171 for 4. This was Gill’s second successive fifty after his 57 off 51 against Hyderabad in Dubai on Sunday (3). RR used seven bowlers and only four of them got wickets – one apiece.
The winners of the inaugural IPL had a horrendous start to their innings with the talented Yashasvi Jaiswal falling for nought. They lost wickets in a heap to get reduced to 35 for 7 before Rahul Tewatia’s (44 off 36) helped them add 50 runs from there but speedster Shivam Mavi’s career-best four for 21 and Lockie Ferguson’s three for 18 saw KKR bundling RR for a paltry 85 to win by 86 runs. It was RR’s second successive below-100 total in this tournament.
