NEW DELHI: Sunil Narine’s 4-wicket haul followed by Jacques Kallis’ gritty 45-ball 41 helped Kolkata Knight Riders beat Royal Challengers Bangalore by 5 wickets in their IPL match at JSCA Stadium Complex in Ranchi.
Kallis looked to defy the Royal Challengers Bangalore bowlers throughout by leading the 116-run chase by hitting 4 boundaries before being dismissed by Abhimanyu Mithun.
Kallis in his cautious innings of 41 played sensible shots throughout and played a major role in stabalising the Knight Riders run chase after Yusuf Pathan was dismissed by Murali Kartik.
Yusuf (18) was caught plumb by Kartik after Royal Challengers Bangalore pacers struck early to dismiss Kolkata Knight Riders opener Manvinder Bisla and Gautam Gambhir.
Yusuf put up a 30-run partnership with Kallis for the third wicket as the Knight Riders looked to inch closer to victory despite losing wickets on the onset of their innings.
Earlier, Kolkata skipper Gambhir (14) was caught at slip by Chris Gayle off the bowling of Vinay Kumar, who proved instrumental in breaking the 31-run stand between Gambhir and Kallis.
The Gambhir-Kallis duo looked to steady the Kolkata run chase after Ravi Rampaul struck on the second delivery of the very first over to have Bisla (0) caught at point by Moises Henriques.
Earlier, an impressive bowling display by Sunil Narine (4/22) helped Kolkata Knight Riders restrict Royal Challengers Bangalore to 115/9.
After opting to bowl first, Kolkata Knight Riders seemed to dominate the proceedings throughout the match as they dismissed the Royal Challengers Bangalore batsmen with worrying ease.
The Knight Riders drew first blood when Suchitra Senanayake struck to dismiss Bangalore opener Chetestwar Pujara early.
Senanayake had Pujara (5) caught at cover point by Laxmipathy Balaji after Kolkata skipper Gambhir won the toss and decided to bowl.
Soon after, Bangalore skipper Virat Kohli (17) too failed to make an impression when he had his stumps knocked over after getting an inside edge off the bowling of Kallis.
Chris Gayle and AB de Villiers then seemed to steady the Bangalore innings as they put up a precarious 24-run partnership for the 3rd wicket.
However, mystery spinner Sunil Narine had other ideas in mind when he completely bamboozled the West Indian who was brilliantly stumped by Kolkata wicketkeeper Bisla for a score of 33.
That prompted Henriques to come out to the crease who along with De Villiers put up a quick-fire 25 runs for the 4th wicket, but the smiling assassin Balaji scalped De Villiers to put KKR in command.
Narine and Kallis then rubbed more salt on the Bangalore wounds when they picked up the wickets of Saurabh Tiwary (1) and Henriques (11) in successive overs.
The Knight Riders have made two changes for this match with Senanayake and Debabrata Das replacing Eoin Morgan and Iqbal Abdulla.
On the other hand, the Royal Challengers bring in Abhimanyu Mithun for Syed Mohammad.
Teams:
Kolkata Knight Riders: Manvinder Bisla, Gautam Gambhir, Jacques Kallis, Yusuf Pathan, Ryan ten Doeschate, Manoj Tiwary, Debabrata Das, Rajat Bhatia, Suchitra Senanayake, Sunil Narine, Laxmipathy Balaji.
Royal Challengers Bangalore: Cheteshwar Pujara, Chris Gayle, Virat Kohli, AB de Villiers, Moises Henriques, Saurabh Tiwary, Ravi Rampaul, Abhimanyu Mithun, R Vinay Kumar, Murali Kartik, Jaydev Unadkat.
