Kolkata Knight Riders racked up its biggest total in the Indian Premier League on Saturday and defeated Kings XI Punjab by 31 runs.
Sunil Narine's blistering 75 off 36 balls and captain Dinesh Karthik's robust 50 off 23 lifted Kolkata to 245-6 after Punjab skipper Ravichandran Ashwin won the toss and opted to chase on a small ground.
Lokesh Rahul (66) hit his third successive half-century in the tournament but the rest of the Punjab top order fell against Andre Russell (3-41) before Ashwin's quick 45 took his team to 214-8 at the end.
Kolkata moved to fourth spot with 12 points while third-place Punjab has the same total but a better net run-rate. Punjab also has played a game less than Kolkata's 12.
Kolkata’s 245/6 is the fourth highest score in the history of IPL. The top two spots have been occupied by Royal Challengers Bangalore, who scored 263/5 against the now defunct Pune Warriors in the summers of 2013 and then in 2016 scored 248/3 against Gujarat Lions. At one point of time Knight Riders were well on their way to break the record but in the end had to settle for four runs shy of 250.
One of the main reasons for KKR’s mammoth total was the start given by Sunil Narine. Narine, who smashed nine boundaries and four sixes, went onto make 75 from 36 balls. This was his highest score in any edition of the IPL and third highest in the shortest format of the game. Narine’s highest T20 score of 79 came in the Caribbean Premier League against Barbados Tridents for the Tribago Knight Riders in 2017.
After Narine got dismissed, skipper Dinesh Karthik took over the mantle and did the bulk of the scoring. Karthik brought up his first fifty of the tournament in 22 balls, his fastest fifty in any season of the IPL.
Kings XI Punjab tried their best but could only manage 214/8 in their allotted 20 overs. Though they couldn’t win the match but were successful in scoring the second most runs in an IPL match, along with KKR. Both teams together managed to score 459, only second to Chennai and Rajasthan’s effort in 2010, where they scored 469.
(With inputs from AP)
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