Kolkata Knight Riders ended their winning drought after 5 matches when they finally secured the win against Rajasthan Royals at Wankhede Stadium. It was wonderful teamwork by the KKR and the knights were finally able to make the night to their name. RR batted first and put up 152 for the loss of 5 wickets in 20 overs. KKR coming to bat in the second innings, chased down the total in 19.1 overs, losing only three wickets. Here are the three factors which led KKR to secure the win.
KKR bowlers being economical
KKR bowlers didn’t concede many runs in the match. Though in this season, Wankhede’s pitch hasn’t been known for scoring runs, KKR bowlers bowled in the way, for which the RR batters scored 15 to 20 runs short from their original total. Though Tim Southee was a little bit economical, conceding 46 runs in 4 overs, but still he picked up 2 important wickets of Jos Buttler and Riyan Parag.
Shreyas Iyer’s captaincy
Shreyas Iyer has been seen shuffling the team a lot and has also been giving more than 5 bowlers to bowl in almost every match. However, in their second encounter versus RR, he played only 5 bowlers, made their correct usage, and restricted the Royals to 152. Though RR’s Hetmyer played a speedy knock of 27 of 13 balls with 1 four and 2 sixes, for which they were able to cross the 150 mark.
Nitish Rana and Rinku Singh pairing up
The most important factor that led KKR towards victory is the pairing up of Rinku Singh and Nitish Rana. Both the KKR openers including Aaron Finch and Baba Indrajith weren’t able to deliver for long, after which Shreyas Iyer played a sensible inning of 34 of 32 balls with 3 fours and a six. However after he got out, it was because of the joint efforts of Nitish Rana and Rinku Singh, that KKR was able to cross the victory line, and no wicket fell from that position. Rana and Rinku scored 48 out of 37 and 42 out of 23, respectively, with the latter one getting the man of the match award.
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