Kolkata Knight Riders captain Shreyas Iyer feels it was one of the best games of Cricket he has played after his team lost the thrilling contest against Lucknow Super Giants by two runs at the Dr. DY Patil Sports Academy, Mumbai on Wednesday.
LSG posted a massive score of 210 runs after Quinton de Kock and KL Rahul played superb knocks.
This is the highest opening alliance in the history of the IPL as Quinton de Kock scored 140 from 70 balls whereas KL Rahul added 68 from 51 balls. In fact, de Kock had the rub of the green on his side as he was dropped by Abhijeet Tomar when he was on only 12.
The left and right-hand batting duo batted at the top of their game and timed the ball to perfection. In fact, one thought that a score of 165 was going to be par but LSG opening pair was able to exceed the expectations.
On the other hand, Kolkata Knight Riders didn’t get off to an ideal start in the run-chase as they lost both of their openers – Venkatesh Iyer and Abhijeet Tomar – early in the innings. However, Shreyas Iyer and Nitish Rana played aggressively to keep up with the required run rate.
Rana scored 42 whereas Iyer added 50 runs to keep KKR in the contest. But Andre Russell was dismissed cheaply after scoring five runs and it looked KKR will go down by a big margin when they needed 67 runs off the last four overs.
However, Rinku Singh and Sunil Narine had other ideas and both of them cleared the boundary ropes at will. 21 runs were needed off the last over and Rinku Singh scored 16 runs off the first three balls. But Marcus Stoinis was able to defend five runs off the last three balls to help LSG qualify for the playoff stages.
Shreyas Iyer said in the post-match presentation, “I am not feeling sad at all. That was one of the best games of cricket I have played. The way we should our character and attitude was simply outstanding. I love the way Rinku got us till the end but unfortunately couldn’t time it when two balls were remaining, he was really sad.
I was hoping he could finish the game for us and could have been the hero, but still played a fantastic knock and I am really happy for him. When we came in, I never thought it would play this way because it was dry and the grass wasn’t that wet. I thought there would be little help for the spinners but once they started going.”
He added, “LSG took on the bowlers and got a par total. It was a do or die situation for us, even after losing two wickets in the powerplay our mindset was to go for the chase and take it close as possible and put them under pressure. It was a volatile season for us, we started great but lost five games in a row and I personally feel we did a lot of chopping and changing, we had to do that because of the niggles and form, but we also got to know the players such as Rinku.
The vibe has always been positive in the dressing room and we never hit the panic button. I have built a really good relationship with Baz (McCullum) and he is someone who is calm and composed even when the situation is going out of the way, you can go and talk to him at any point of the game. He’s got that aura when he walks around the players and never judges the players, all of us are equal for him.”
KKR are now out of the playoff race and they will look to bounce back stronger in the next season.
