Against a high-flying Chennai Super Kings outfit, Kolkata Knight Riders were extremely close to snatching a victory and extending their winning run to three matches in the UAE leg of IPL 2021. However, a poor over from Prasidh Krishna and a majestic Ravindra Jadeja performance with the bat left it all undone.
Chennai Super Kings needed 26 runs off the final two overs and they got exactly that after a 22-run penultimate over from Prasidh Krishna where Jadeja took him to the cleaners. Deepak Chahar then hit the winning run on the final ball of Sunil Narine’s exceptional final over to take his side home and on top of the table.
“Both sides batted and bowled well. Both bowled really well. I can’t fault anything from our side. The second half of the tournament has been a lot of positives for our side. We just have to give ourselves the best chance,” said Eoin Morgan in the post-match presentation ceremony.
Despite finding successes while chasing in the previous two matches at the Sheikh Zayed Stadium in Abu Dhabi, Kolkata Knight Riders chose to bat first on this occasion. Rahul Tripathi and Nitish Rana played solid knocks and a late blast from Dinesh Karthik helped KKR reach a respectable score of 171 on a testing wicket.
In the penultimate over, Prasidh Krishna got his line and length all wrong and Ravindra Jadeja ended up making the most of it. With the help of two boundaries and two sixes, he put Chennai Super Kings in control of the tie going into the final over. Although Sunil Narine dismissed both Jadeja and Sam Curran in that over, he couldn’t cause an upset.
“Sunil takes the responsibility [for the final over, so Prasidh Krishna bowled the 19th over]. I hope Dre [Andre Russell] is okay. The whole tournament has an abundance of top-class international cricketers. But when Jadeja plays like that, similar to Sam Curran for England, I don’t think there’s a lot to do.”
KKR mentor David Hussey lamented the absence of Andre Russell who had to leave the park after suffering an injury. He also mentioned that had he not been injured, it’d have been Russell bowling the 19th over. Dre Russ has a terrific track record bowling in the Death overs.
“Of course, when Andre went out of the park, he had one over to bowl. Was he going to bowl it, nobody really knows. He bowled probably particularly well upfront, so he probably was gonna bowl the 19th over.”
