Chennai, Apr 14 (PTI) Kolkata Knight Riders produced one of their best bowling performances, riding on the spin troika of Sunil Narine, Anukul Roy, and Varun Chakaravarthy, to restrict Chennai Super Kings to a manageable 192 for five in an IPL match here on Tuesday.
After Sanju Samson (48 off 32 balls) and Ayush Mhatre (38 off 17 balls) took the score to 72 for 2 at the end of the powerplay, off-spinner Narine (1/21 in 4 overs), slow left-armer Anukul (1/21 in 3 overs) and Varun (0/26 in 3 overs) gave only 68 runs in the 10 overs that they sent down cumulatively, while getting two wickets.
In the 14 overs post powerplay, CSK managed only 120 runs at less than nine runs per over, and it was all down to the KKR spinners.
At the back-end, Kartik Tyagi (2/35 in 4 overs) bowled fast, in the late 140s, and also mixed it with pace off deliveries out of batter’s arc to make things difficult.
Dewald Brevis (41 off 29 balls) showed glimpses of his class while Sarfaraz Khan (23 off 18 balls) once again displayed his cheeky cricketing smarts in a half-century plus stand, but CSK were at least 20 runs short of a par score on this track.
At the start, Samson teed off with three boundaries, including a streaky one off Vaibhav Arora’s in his opening over.
However, it was U-19 World Cup winning captain Mhatre, who upped the ante straightaway with back-to-back sixes off Cameron Green, apart from hitting a couple of boundaries.
The standout would be a Kapil Dev-style ‘Nataraja Shot’ behind square. He also hit another open-chested six over mid-wicket. Mhatre’s knock really gave the CSK innings the required momentum, even as Samson played the second fiddle during that phase.
While his innings could be termed far from being a smooth effort, he did show his touch with one straight six off Kartik Tyagi, who later came back with a fast 148.1 click off-cutter to breach Samson’s defence.
The Chepauk track was two-paced in nature, with the odd ball gripping and coming into the bat late, and the KKR trio of Anukul, Narine and Chakravarthy found enough purchase to put brakes on run-scoring after the end of powerplay, and Tyagi complemented them brilliantly. PTI KHS KHS AH AH
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