Kolkata Knight Riders captain Shreyas Iyer opened on the recent defeat against Punjab Kings and said “batters batted was tremendous to see”.
Kolkata Knight Riders were scheduled to face Punjab Kings to play the 42ns match of the IPL 2024 on April 26 in Eden Gardens, Kolkata. Winning the toss, Punjab Kings decided to bowl first where KKR’s opening duo – Salt and Narine made an extraordinary opening partnership and scored 138 runs for the first wicket.
Rahul Chahar made the first breakthrough by dismissing Narine for 71 runs which he scored in just 31 deliveries. Soon PBKS captain Sam Curren dismissed dangerous Salt for 75 runs.
With a decent contribution from the middle order batters, KKR managed to score 261 runs for 6 wickets loss at the end of 20 overs. On the other hand, Prabhsimran Singh and Jonny Bairstow made an impressive start and scored a whopping 93 runs in the powerplay.
In the final delivery of the powerplay, Prabhsimran Singh lost his wicket in an unwanted run between wickets. Though Rilee Rossouw failed to maintain the impact and lost his wicket for 26 runs, Shashank Singh scored 28 balls 68 and led the team to chase down the score with 8 balls left.
Punjab Kings’ victory led them to register the highest score successfully chased in Men’s T20 cricket history.
Following the defeat, KKR captain Shreyas Iyer said “I would have (taken 260 at the start of the day). The way the batters batted was tremendous to see, Sunny coming in.. the way Salt batted, they delivered and it was a treat for the eyes.
Both the teams played tremendously, one of those games where you go back to the drawing board and see where it went wrong especially not being able to defend 260. We have to sum up the conditions and come up with better ideas. It is brilliant to see him (Narine) go out there and strike the ball, hopefully, he keeps continuing with such performances”.
The defeat didn’t make much change in KKR’s position in the IPL 2024 points table. Shreyas Iyer and Co. KKR placed at the second spot in the table while PBKS placed at the 8th spot.
Kolkata Knight Riders will play their next match of the season against Delhi Capitals on April 29 in Eden Gardens, Kolkata.
