Ben Stokes produced a few scorching deliveries but met his match in Robin Uthappa, who charted Kolkata Knight Rider’s (KKR) third win in five encounters — a seven-wicket romp against Rajasthan Royals at the Sawai Man Singh Stadium here on Wednesday night. For the host it was a second loss in four matches this IPL season.
Stokes was expected to lift Rajasthan Royals’ spirits but his spectacular piece of fielding to get rid of Uthappa came too late in the contest. The home team had displayed poor fielding before Stokes, at long-on, knocked the ball back and held it on the second attempt. By then the contest had swung the visitor’s way leaving Dinesh Karthik and Nitish Rana to finish the job started vigorously by Sunil Narine and Uthappa.
A target of 160 was not going to cause KKR any discomfort even though it lost Chris Lynn to the third ball of the innings.
Uthappa’s well-crafted knock and Narine’s clinical hitting at the top ensured that it stayed in the game. Narine — making up for his shabby bowling earlier — put on 69 with Uthappa to set KKR on course for an emphatic triumph.
Put in to bat first, Rajasthan Royals’ Ajinkya Rahane and D’Arcy Short were confronted by spinners Piyush Chawla and Kuldeep Yadav looking to exploit a slow pitch.
It took a generous offering from Sunil Narine for the home team to put its innings on track.
Rahane took 18 from that Narine over but the tempo was hard to maintain once he was stumped by Karthik.
The first six overs fetched Royals 48 runs and the home fans provided vociferous support to their team only to experience disappointment as KKR clawed its way back courtesy Rana.
It was a clever ploy by KKR skipper Karthik to make use of Rana at a stage where the Royals batsmen wanted to take a chance against the irregular bowler. Rana bowled just two overs — enough to make an impact on the contest.
Much was expected from Royals’ batting strength, especially Sanju Samson and Stokes. The ambitious pull by Samson was an indiscreet shot too early in the innings, while Stokes was foxed by Chawla’s change of pace.
The total proved inadequate and KKR left the home team embarrassed.
