IPL 2021: Match 54, KKR vs RR – Who Said What

The Kolkata Knight Riders thrashed Rajasthan Royals in every sense of the word to seal their top-four spot with a stamp of authority. Already knocked out of contention, barring an odd mathematical wonder, the Royals were comfortably outplayed in every department of the game, losing the game by a massive margin of 86 runs.

KKR looked like a team on a mission right from the word go, with openers Venkatesh Iyer and Shubman Gill notching up a 79-run stand. Lacking the wicket-taking incisiveness for the larger part of their innings, none of the Royals’ bowlers were able to make a mark, keeping aside Chetan Sakariya, who returned with 1/23, giving runs at an economy of 5.75 when the opposition continued to score close to the eight-run mark.

Iyer, who scored 38 off 35 including three fours and two sixes, was cleaned up by Rahul Tewatia, while his partner Gill, who notched up a half-century, perished to Chris Morris for 56 off 44, with four boundaries and two sixes. Nitish Rana briefly threatened, hitting a six and a four in his 5-ball 12 but holed out to Liam Livingstone to give Glenn Phillips his only scalp for the night.  Small, albeit crucial, contributions came from Rahul Tripathi (21 off 14), Dinesh Karthik (14 off 11) and Eoin Morgan (13 off 11) that powered KKR past 170.

During their attempt to chase, the Royals produced arguably one of their bleakest and most forgettable performances in the league’s history, being tumbled out for a paltry 85, with wrecker-in-chief Shivam Mavi bagging a career-best 4/21 in his 3.1 overs alongside Lockie Ferguson, who bagged 3/18 from his quota. On a night when nothing went their way, only Tewatia (44 off 36) and Shivam Dube (18 off 20) could muster double-digit scores as Royals nearly sealed the fate of Punjab Kings and Mumbai Indians alongside them.

Even for a game of grand unpredictability, a 171-run victory after setting 250 – the scenario for MI to qualify – seems impossible, to say the least. Meanwhile, in case MI chases, they stand no chance to better KKR’s stupendous net run rate, which is 0.587 (current best in the league) as opposed to their -0.048.

Losing skipper Sanju Samson:

I think to be very honest it was a better wicket. It was staying a little low with the new ball but it was a better wicket. 171 was chaseable on this wicket. I think we wanted to get a good start. We needed a powerful powerplay. We wanted to execute whatever we planned but we didn’t execute. I think if you look at the whole season, we have gone through many challenges. We showed character though and am proud of the boys. We won some close games and lost some easy ones. We need to play a better standard of cricket to win more games in this tournament. Everyone came up with positive vibes, People were ready to go out there and win games for us. Being the skipper, I changed the way I look at my innings. It was always about thinking about the match situations. I would have loved to win more games despite scoring a lot of runs.

Winning skipper Eoin Morgan:

Losing the toss and having to set was a difficult challenge. Venkatesh Iyer and Shubman Gill have been the shining lights for us in the second half. I thought we were brilliant to take the opportunities. If you got too hard too early here, you could get out. I thought our batters timed their assault very well. Shakib coming in and performing has made missing Andre Russell a little bit easier, because Russ is a genuine batter and bowler. We knew he recovers quickly, so we are assessing day by day. We did everything we had to do.

Player of the Match Shivam Mavi:

I feel really good to do well on this wicket. The plan was to bowl wicket to wicket and to not give room because of the low bounce. When I was playing under-19, you need to keep learning. I learnt how to use the slower ball, when to bowl the yorker, I have learnt a lot here at KKR. I liked Dube’s wicket. Feels nice to get wicket LBW or bowled as a bowler.