IPL 2024

‘A night to remember’: Rinku Singh, Sunil Narine onslaught in vain as Lucknow hold nerves to win sea-saw battle

Kolkata have been knocked out of the Indian T20 League

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K. Gowtham, Kolkata Knight Riders (Image Credit : BCCI/IPL)

Lucknow and Kolkata locked horns in the 66th match of the Indian T20 League 2022 at the D.Y Patil Stadium in Mumbai. Lucknow skipper KL Rahul won the toss and decided to bat first. Openers, Quinton de Kock and the skipper himself proved the decision right with an impressive show with the bat.They started slowly as they took the team to 44/0 at the end of the powerplay.

At that time, Rahul was batting on a run-a-ball 18 and De Kock was on 26 off 18 balls. The pair scored at more than seven runs per over till the ninth over. At the end of the over, the team was standing at 68/0. In the tenth over, the right-hander hit two sixes against Tim Southee. After this, there was no stopping the opening pair as they took the team to 210/0.

This is the highest opening partnership in the history of the cash-rich league. Also, this is the first time in the history of the tournament that an opening pair went unbeaten at the end of the first innings. De Kock scored 140 off 70 balls including 10 fours and as many sixes. On the other hand, Rahul scored 68 off 51 balls including three fours and four sixes.

Talking about Kolkata’s bowling, only Sunil Narine was economical while others had a poor day. In reply, the two-time winners had a poor start as Venkatesh Iyer (0) was caught behind by De Kock off Mohsin Khan. Two overs later, Khan took the wicket of debutant Abhijit Tomar (4) as he was caught at mid-on by Rahul. On 9/2, the likes of Nitish Rana and skipper Shreyas Iyer fought back and added 56 runs for the third wicket.

Rana scored 42 off 22 balls before he was caught at long-off by Marcus Stoinis off K. Gowtham. Sam Billings came in and added another 66 runs before the skipper was caught at deep midwicket by Deepak Hooda off Stoinis after scoring 50 off 29 balls. Two overs later, Billings (36) a was stumped out off Ravi Bishnoi. Russell (5) couldn’t do much as he was caught at long-off by Hooda off Khan. At 150/6, the team needed another 61 runs in 3.2 overs.

The likes of Rinku Singh (40 off 15) and Sunil Narine (21* off seven) launched an assault to put Kolkata ahead. However, the team just couldn’t cross the line and lost the match by two runs.

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