The seasoned opener from the West Indies, Sunil Narine, lighted the night up with a solid all-round performance as he smashed his way to a brilliant 81 off just 39 balls and also captured a crucial wicket for Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) in their thumping 98-run thrashing of Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) in Match 54 of the Indian Premier League (IPL) at the Ekana Cricket Stadium on Sunday.
In the new era of IPL matches being churned out with more than 200 runs, Narine's explosive knock-off propelled the KKR side to a dominating score of 235/6 in their allotted 20 overs, which remains the highest total at the Ekana Stadium so far.
Having made a fantastically explosive beginning with the bat, Narine came back to bowl with the new ball and took the field. The first over he bowled went for just three runs off a wide even after the opposing captain, K.L. Rahul, had got off to a good start together with Marcus Stoinis. However, the early momentum was swinging towards the KKR side when Rahul fell to a well-taken catch from Harshit Rana in front of the wicket off the bowling of Arshin Kulkarni.
LSG, when going well in their batting, had a durable start with captain K.L. Rahul and Marcus Stoinis developing a healthy partnership. However, the momentum swung the way of the KKR side when Raunak Sadriya dismissed captains Rahul to a well-taken catch in front of the wicket off Arshin Kulkarni's opening over.
KKR's bowlers came back with a good joint effort, with Andre Russell, Varun Chakravarthy, and Narine sharing most of the crucial scalps to keep LSG's progress in check. After conceding just three runs off a wide, Varun Chakravarthy emerged as the top bowler of the lot by scalping three crucial scalps while conceding only 30 runs.
In their batting, KKR's openers Phil. Jordan and Sunil Narine put up a good show, but their poor finishing still cost them one more run.
The Knight Riders' bowlers kept on getting dismantling LSG's batting lineup, bowling them out for a mere 137 runs in 16.1 overs. Varun Chakravarthy and Harshit Rana starred with the ball by claiming three wickets each. And Narine and Mitchell Starc took some wickets out to break the opposition.
Thus, Kolkata Knight Riders came out victorious in a comprehensive manner against Lucknow Super Giants in the Match 54 of the IPL. The explosive batting and disciplined bowling are just the cherry on top of the icing cream for us.
Brief Scores:
Kolkata Knight Riders 235/6 in 20 overs, with Sunil Narine making 81 and Phil Salt 32; Naveen-ul-Haq 3-49, Yudhvir Singh 1-24. Defeating Lucknow Super Giants by 98 runs all out in 16.3 overs, with Marcus Stoinis making 36, K.L. Rahul 25; Harshit Rana 3-24 and Varun Chakravarthy 3-30.
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