An all-round performance by the Kolkata Knight Riders saw them batter the Rajasthan Royals by 7 wickets. Chasing a decent score of 160, KKR made short work of the total after losing just 3 wickets; they won with 7 balls to spare. Nitish Rana was a star with both bat and ball, and was given his second Man of the Match award in as many games.
The Delhi born all-rounder was visibly pleased with his performance after the game: “Both games were very important for us, I backed myself both times, and luckily I won Man of the Match in both games. It's such a big platform; you don't get loose balls that often. So you have to convert all of them. Which is why I got a little angry with myself when I missed out on a few,” he said as he was presented the award.
After losing opener Chris Lynn in the third ball of the innings, KKR took control of the game with all of the other 4 batsmen crossing 30. Sunil Narine, who finished with 35 off 25 balls was joined by Robin Uthappa in the middle. The pair laid a fantastic foundation for the team, putting up a partnership of 69 runs off 49 balls, in the second wicket.
Uthappa finished with a well-made 48 off 36 balls
Following the loss of Uthappa in the 13th over, with the score reading 102 for 3, skipper Dinesh Karthik and Nitish made the rest look too easy as they cruised to a 61-run unbeaten partnership to secure a resounding victory.
KKR finished on 163 for 3 after 18.5 overs.
After the match, Dinesh Karthik said, "It feels good to get two wins on the trot. Slowly, things are falling in a good direction. It feels that the wrist-spinners are a little harder to pick, and that the fast bowlers would come on to the bat. Which is why we bowled them at the start. The way Robin batted was fantastic; he set the tone for us, and it was good to see Nitish bat through for us.”
Nitish picked up 2 wickets for just 11 runs in his 2 overs but, the most important spells of the innings came from Piyush Chawla who bowled 3 of his 4 overs in the power-play, and Kuldeep Yadav who opened the bowling alongside Piyush. The pair picked a wicket each while conceding just 41 runs in their combined 8 overs. Chawla finished with 1 for 18 while Yadav conceded 23 runs in his 4 overs.