SUNILl Narine starred with bat and ball in Kolkata Knight Riders’ (KKR) win over Delhi Capitals (DC) in Match 41 of the VIVO Indian Premier League (IPL) 2021 in Sharjah yesterday.

In the chase of 128, KKR were off to a brisk start before Lalit Yadav dismissed Venkatesh Iyer in the fifth over. While Rahul Tripathi announced his arrival in style, he got out soon after as DC picked the second KKR wicket in the powerplay.

DC then kept things tight with the ball and the approach worked as KKR lost Gill and captain Eoin Morgan in the 11th and 12th overs respectively.
While Dinesh Karthik and Nitish Rana added a valuable 29-run stand, Avesh Khan picked his second wicket as he dismissed the KKR wicketkeeper-batsman in the 15th over to reduce KKR to 96-5.

Narine joined Rana in the middle and changed the course of the match. The left-hander went after Kagiso Rabada in the 16th over, tonking two sixes and a four, as KKR scored 21 runs an over to bring down the winning target to nine runs from four overs.
While Narine got out in the next over after his 10-ball 21-run cameo and KKR lost Tim Southee in 18th over, Rana, who scored an unbeaten 36 took KKR home.

Earlier, KKR made two changes to their team as Southee and Sandeep Warrier replaced Andre Russell and Prasidh Krishna while DC brought in Steve Smith in place of Prithvi Shaw.

DC made a solid start as the pair of Shikhar Dhawan and Smith took the team to 29-0. But their opening act was cut short as Lockie Ferguson struck in his first over as Venkatesh Iyer took the catch to dismiss the DC left-hander.

Narine struck soon after the powerplay as he let one through the defence of Shreyas Iyer to disturb the timber. Smith and captain Rishabh Pant then chipped in with a 37-run stand before the right-hander chopped one back onto the stumps as Ferguson picked his second wicket.

Iyer’s twin strikes and Narine’s wicket of Lalit Yadav then reduced DC to 92-6 in the 15th over. While R. Ashwin and Rishabh added 28 runs together, KKR restricted DC to 127-9.

(IPL)