Kolkata Knight Riders skipper Nitish Rana was delighted after they defeated Royal Challengers Bangalore by 21 runs at the M.Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bengaluru on Wednesday. KKR had lost their last four matches and it was almost a must-win game for them.
Rana lauded the character of the team after they came up with a collective effort to beat RCB for the second time in the season. KKR posted a par score of 200 runs on the board after Virat Kohli decided to put them into bat.
Jason Roy gave a brisk start to his team as he scored a quickfire knock of 56 runs from 29 balls. Rana also gave the much-needed impetus in the middle overs as the left-hander scored 48 runs from 21 balls. In fact, Rana was given two reprieves by RCB as he was dropped when he was on five and 15 by Mohammed Siraj and Harshal Patel respectively.
Subsequently, Rinku Singh (18 off 10) and David Wiese (12 off 3) added the finishing touches for KKR. On the other hand, Suyash Sharma took two early wickets of Faf du Plessis and Shahbaz Ahmed whereas Varun Chakravarthy dismissed Glenn Maxwell in the PowerPlay overs.
Chakravarthy was the pick of the KKR bowlers, returning with figures of 3-27 in his quota of four overs. Furthermore, Andre Russell and Suyash Sharma bagged two wickets apiece as RCB was restricted to 179-8.
Nitish Rana said in the post-match presentation, “Last 3-4 matches I’ve been saying the same thing at the toss – if we play well collectively, result will be in our favour. You need a lot of character in the dressing room to give a performance like this in our situation. The belief has always been there that we’ll bounce back. We wanted to put a score on the board.”
He added, “Felt like it would turn in the second innings because there wasn’t much dew. It didn’t turn a lot but we bowled well. Whenever I’ve spoken to him (Suyash Sharma), he has always put his hand up. He always says I’ll do the job. We tell him to not look at who is batting against you, just focus on your own bowling.”
KKR will next face defending champions Gujarat Titans at the Eden Gardens, Kolkata on Saturday.
