Four early blows, including Ben Stokes and Steve Smith, for Pat Cummins in Rajasthan Royals’ innings played an instrumental role in helping Kolkata Knight Riders win by 60 runs in Dubai on Sunday night, keeping their slim hopes of making the playoffs alive.
Rajasthan Royals become the third team to get knocked out along with Kings XI Punjab and Chennai Super Kings.
After captain Eoin Morgan’s half century earlier, Cummins justified his price tag with an incredible effort with the ball in the powerplay as RR looked to chase down 192 in 13 overs to keep their head above water.
Jofra Archer struck on the second ball of the match, sending back Nitish Rana for a duck. However, Shubman Gill and Rahul Tripathi collaborated for the team’s highest partnership - 72 runs for the second wicket.
Tewatia then ended that stand by picking up the scalp of Gill for 36. In the same over, he also picked the wicket of Sunil Narine for a duck.
KKR in fact lost Sunil Narine, Tripathi and Dinesh Karthik in quick succession, but that’s when Morgan and Andre Russell took over. Russell and Morgan took Shreyas Gopal to the cleaners with a 21-run over and followed it up with 11 off Archer.
Steve Smith introduced Kartik Tyagi, who was greeted with a couple of sixes over his head, but an attempted third over deep point landed safely in David Miller’s hands, ending an 11-ball-25 from Russell.
Morgan soldiered on and smashed his Ben Stokes to all corners of the park in the 19th over, taking 24 off it with Pat Cummins for company.
Cummins tried to keep the momentum going against Tyagi in the final over but fell off the second delivery. Kamlesh Nagarkoti handed over strike to Morgan, who finished the innings with yet another monster six.
England’s ODI World Cup winning captain walked off unbeaten on 68 off 35 deliveries, peppered with 6 sixes and 5 boundaries.
With the NRR in the back of the minds for both sides, Ben Stokes and Robin Uthappa started off the chase in style – Cummins, one of the best in world, went for 19 runs off the first over with Stokes scooping him over the keeper for a six. Cummins however bounced back well with the scalp of former KKR player Uthappa off the final delivery.
Off the first delivery of his next over, Cummins accounted for Stokes with a bit of help from Dinesh Karthik who took a brilliant flying catch off the outside edge to his left. Cummins ended the over with the scalp of Smith who chopped it onto the stumps leaving the Royals reeling at 32/3.
Shivam Mavi followed suit and had Sanju Samson edging to Karthik before Cummins added a fourth when Riyan Parag was caught behind. After 5 overs, the Royals were 37/5 and hopes of making the playoffs were petering out.
Jos Buttler and Rahul Tewatia were in earlier than they would have liked and had quite the task on hand as KKR continued to keep things tight.
The duo dug in and found the fence five times along with a six from Buttler, but the Englishman’s stay came to an end when he tried to slog Varun Chakravarthy through cow corner, only to find none other than Cummins’ safe hands.
Tewatia’s never say die attitude saw him grind it out a little longer before he too tried slogging Chakravarthy, only for Karthik to take his fourth catch, leaving the Royals in deep trouble at 105/7.
After that start, KKR would have hoped that they could wrap things up fast enough to help their run rate, but overshot margin by about 20 runs.
Gopal, Archer and Tyagi held on as the Royals finished well short and at the bottom of the IPL table while KKR moved up to fourth spot.
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