Indian Premier League commonly known as the IPL is one of the biggest cricketing carnivals of India. It is a thrilling, exciting and speculating sporting events. The whole experience of any IPL match in India is fantastically loud and elating. The amalgamation of business tycoons, Bollywood celebrities, and cricket stars in this event is engrossing which makes it one of the most-viewed sporting events in the country.
In the eliminator clash held between Kolkata Knight Riders(KKR) co-owned by Shahrukh Khan and Rajasthan Royals(RR) co-owned by Shilpa Shetty, the latter was defeated by 25 runs in the match held in Eden Gardens. With this loss, Rajasthan Royals had to bid adieu to the 2018 IPL. Kolkata Knight Riders will soon face another qualifier match with SunRisers Hyderabad on Friday, May 25.
At the beginning of the match, it appeared that Rajasthan was going steady, as their batsmen including Ajinkya Rahane, Rahul Tripathi, and Sanju Samson were scoring well. Rahane scored 46 runs while Tripathi and Samson scored 20 and 50 respectively. Odds turned into the favour of Kolkata Knight Riders when Piyush Chawla pegged back the wickets of Samson and Tripathi. The Kolkata bowlers put pressure on the opposing team due to which they ultimately crumbled and eventually lost the match to the better team. Thanks to Andre Russell for his brilliant death bowling which helped him gain the title of the ‘Man of the Match’. To seal the victory of the Kolkata Knight Riders, Prasidh bowled the last over and gave just 8 runs.
While batting, Dinesh Karthik and Andre Russell accumulated the highest number of runs for the KKR team in this match. Karthik scored 52 runs while Russell scored 49. All other players including Sunil Narine (4), Chris Lynn (18), Uthappa (3) and Rana (3), were unable to provide a competitive total to the team. However, the score of Dinesh Karthik and Andre Russell provided stability and at long last, the Kolkata Knight Riders was finally able to win the match.
Now, with this victory, KKR has achieved another milestone but the Qualifier 2 with SunRisers Hyderabad will decide the fate of KKR.
