Miserly bowling & fifties from Rana, Rinku keep Kolkata in playoff hunt with six-wicket win over Chennai
CHENNAI: For once, the Chennai Super Kings' spinners came up short at home. Kolkata Knight Riders' Sunil Narine and Varun Chakravarthy outperformed the hosts' spin trio.
After suffering three early setbacks in a chase of 145 courtesy Deepak Chahar, KKR captain Nitish Rana allied with Rinku Singh to calmly guide the visitors to a six-wicket victory at the MA Chidambaram Stadium on Sunday.
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CSK were left wondering what could have been, had they not dropped Rana when he was on 18. The KKR skipper top-edged a sweep off Moeen Ali in the 11th over, but Matheesha Pathirana spilled it after running in from deep square and landing on his elbow.
Rana needed no second invitation and piled on the agony along with Rinku as conditions seemed to get better for batting with the dew coming into play. The duo played prudently, compiling 99 runs to shut the door on the home side, who are now uncertain of a top-two berth in the table.
Earlier, Narine and Chakravarthy won the middle overs battle with four collective wickets, and Shardul Thakur and Vaibhav Arora bowled skillfully at the death as KKR restricted CSK to 144.
Narine, who had picked up just one wicket in his last nine matches for KKR, really took to the dry Chepauk surface, bamboozling the home team's batters. Narine first cleaned up Ambati Rayudu with an off-break that beat Rayudu's attempted sweep and clattered the top of off stump.
1/10:IPL 2023: KKR down CSK to keep play-off hopes alive
ANI
2/10:Rana and Rinku
<p>Fifties from skipper Nitish Rana and Rinku Singh led Kolkata Knight Riders to a six-wicket win over Chennai Super Kings and stay alive in the Indian Premier League on Sunday. </p>PTI
3/10:Match-winning stand
<p>KKR kept CSK down to 144/6, a total they overhauled riding on a key stand of 99 between Rinku (54) and Rana (57*) in Chennai. </p>PTI
4/10:Shivam Dube
<p>Four-time winners CSK started strongly but slipped from 61/1 to 72/5 in the space of 19 balls before Shivam Dube revived the innings with his unbeaten 48. </p>AFP
5/10:MS Dhoni
<p>Dube kept up the fight in his 34-ball knock laced with three sixes but it was MS Dhoni who brought the house down in his team's last league game at the Chepauk. </p>IANS
6/10:Deafening roar
<p>Dhoni walked in to a deafening roar as he faced four balls including a wide and no-ball on which he was bowled but ended on two not out. </p>ANI
7/10:Varun Chakravarthy
<p>KKR spinners Varun Chakravarthy and Sunil Narine took two wickets each to set up victory. </p>AFP
8/10:Deepak Chahar
<p>KKR looked in trouble at 33/3 after Deepak Chahar's third strike to send back Jason Roy, before Rinku and Rana guided the team home with nine balls to spare. </p>PTI
9/10:Man of the match
<p>Rinku struck his third fifty of the season before being run out and was named man of the match. </p>PTI
10/10:Leading from the front
<p>Rana made most of a dropped catch on 18 to reach his fifty and stood firm to hit the winning runs. </p>IANSIn the same over, he accounted for Moeen, this time with a carrom ball that went through the southpaw's defences. Narine conceded just 15 runs in his four overs.
He was well complemented by Chakravarthy, who, relatively speaking, was expensive but prised out the crucial wickets of Ruturaj Gaikwad and Ajinkya Rahane. The CSK top order came out with a plan to attack Chakravarthy from the word go, which ended playing into his hands.
Both Gaikwad and Rahane tried to loft Chakravarthy down the ground but the deliveries turned to take the thick outside edges for their downfall.
The hosts built up some momentum later to entertain hopes of a 150-plus total, but Thakur and Arora outsmarted them in the final two overs, giving away just five and four runs with some incisive bowling in the 19th and 20th over respectively to keep them down to 144.
Shivam Dube was the only CSK batter who could adjust to the conditions well.
