IPL 2019: Match 17 – RCB vs KKR – Who Said What

Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) won their third match of this edition’s Indian Premier League (IPL). They beat the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) by five wickets at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium. For a chunk of the game, the hosts, led by Virat Kohli, were in contention for a victory. But a thunderstorm by the name of Andre Russell came to the party and took the home team down.

Kohli and De Villiers dominate

After being put in to bat first, RCB racked up a mammoth 205 in their allotted 20 overs. Parthiv Patel and Virat Kohli trod the attacking route right from the outset and cobbled together a stand of 64 runs from 47 balls after which offie Nitish Rana removed Parthiv for 25 to give the hosts their first breakthrough. Then it was the chance of captain Kohli and AB de Villiers to take the KKR bowling to the cleaners.

Kohli got his half-century in 31 balls and then notched a superlative 84 from 49 balls with nine fours and two sixes. He was dismissed by Kuldeep Yadav in the 18th over. De Villiers played his strokes freely and scored 63 from 32 balls. His knock was laced with five fours and four over-boundaries. In the fag end of the innings, Marcus Stoinis churned out a blistering 28 runs from 13 balls to give the final flurry.

Andre Russell- KKR’s hero

The visiting team started in a fluent manner, courtesy of a 28-run stand between Chris Lynn and Narine in 11 balls. After hitting two fours, Narine perished to pacer Navdeep Saini. Lynn and Robin Uthappa then took charge and injected momentum into the innings. Pawan Negi, playing his first match, got rid of Uthappa, who scored 33 from 25. Lynn became Negi’s second victim after scoring 43 from 31 balls.

Nitish Rana put his foot down the paddle and scored 37 runs from 23 balls with one four and two sixes. Dinesh Karthik threatened with a few boundaries, but even he couldn’t carry on. Then it was the turn of Andre Russell to unfold utter mayhem in the RCB camp. The Jamaican flexed his muscles and demolished the Challengers’ attack, scoring 48 from 13. He hit seven sixes to take the Knights home.

Virat Kohli, the RCB captain, said

There is no guessing there (about where they lost), the last 4 four overs that we bowled was just unacceptable. We needed to be more clever, nothing came off and we just cracked under pressure. That’s been our story this season so far. If you bowl with not enough bravery in the crucial overs, it’s always going to be difficult against power-hitters like Russell. I wasn’t really happy getting out at that moment, could’ve got 20-25 more. AB didn’t get much strike in the end. I thought the runs were enough on the board, we didn’t have enough composure.

If you can’t defend 75 in the last four overs, then I don’t know if you can defend 100. We can have a bit of chat about what went wrong, apart from that nothing much you can say. I don’t think talking enough helps all the time. You need to give the guys some space and come back stronger in the next game. It’s been a disappointing season so far, but we are still optimistic about our chances. We just have to believe in ourselves that we can turn things around.

Dinesh Karthik, KKR captain, said

Those kind of knocks, you don’t talk much. We trust him as a player. It’s important to give him an atmosphere where he’s happy and he just keeps performing. Yeah, it was hard to play strokes against spinners with the ball gripping but was easier against the fast bowlers. I think as much as well he batted, it’s time we all started to bowl better and help the batters. It was nice to see Lynny bat like that and take responsibility.

Andre Russell, the Player of the Match, said

I was confident when I went out to bat. DK was telling me to take a few balls to see how the pitch is behaving. I was watching in the dugout on TV and had a fair idea. When you need 68 off 20-odd balls, it doesn’t happen everyday. Need to put your body on the line. The nature of T20 is such that one over can change the momentum. That’s why I never give up. A part of me was saying that the runs needed were too much but I wanted to fight and eventually, we won with five balls spare. The support is good from the boys and I am in a good space so that I can express myself. No ground is big enough for me I guess, I just trust my power. Hand-eye coordination is the key (for low full tosses) as they aren’t easy to hit. I try short arm jabs as extending the arms can put you in trouble. Can’t explain much, rather show that on the field.

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