KKR registered a clinical win over LSG on Sunday, at the Eden Gardens.
Playing their second home game of the season, KKR dominated with both bat and ball to chase down 162 runs against the KL Rahul side in just 15.4 overs. After Sunil Narine and Mitchell Starc’s heroics with the ball, Phil Salt hit 89* to secure a riveting win, which helped the Koklata-based side maintain dominance at the top of the table.
The win kept KKR strong in the second position of the Indian Premier League table with 8 points from 5 games. In a sticky Eden pitch on a hot and humid day, KKR pulled off a gritty display with both bat and ball to win by 8 wickets.
In the chase of 162 runs, KKR captain Shreyas Iyer joined Phil Salt and added 120 runs off 76 balls. The unbeaten partnership, where the batters did not look smooth for the better part of the innings, kept things a little nervy for KKR but at the end both batters found their range to hand the home side their 4th win in the tournament.
Salt remained unbeaten at 89, his best score in the IPL so far, while Shreyas hit a run-a-ball 38.
KKR vs LSG: AS IT HAPPENED
LSG were put in the backfoot from the very start of the game with their batting line-up failing to dominate at Eden Gardens. LSG top order have been inconsistent in this season and the trend once again continued as Quinton de Kock was dismissed by Vaibhav Arora in the second over of the game. The promotions of Deepak Hooda and Ayush Badoni failed to change the fortunes for the side as both failed to provide LSG with quick runs.
The spin-bowling duo of Sunil Narine and Varun Chakravarthy operated brilliantly through the middle overs, conceding just 47 runs from their 8 overs on the day. Narine was exceptional in particular, not conceding a single boundary at Eden on Sunday, registering a spell of 4-0-17-1.
After a short burst from Nicholas Pooran (45 off 32), Mitchell Starc cleaned up the LSG tail in the final over of the innings with two wickets of Pooran and Arshad Khan. A collective bowling effort from KKR helped the home side restrict LSG to just 161 runs, much below the par-total.
This was LSG’s second loss on the bounce after three wins which might force the team to rethink a few of their strategies. LSG are currently at the 5th spot in the league table with three wins and three losses to their name.