Sunil Narine’s all-round performance kept defending champion Kolkata Knight Riders alive in the Indian Premier League with a 14-run victory over Delhi Capitals on Tuesday.
Narine made a brisk 27 up front to set up a platform for Kolkata’s total of 204-9 after Delhi captain Axar Patel won the toss and elected to field.
Narine, an experienced West Indies all-rounder, then grabbed 3-29 and ran out Lokesh Rahul to restrict Delhi to 190-9 — its third defeat in four home games this season.
Delhi stayed at No. 4 with 12 points while Kolkata remained in contention for playoffs with nine points after 10 league games.
Narine holds down Delhi
Faf du Plessis top-scored with 62 off 45 and had pushed Delhi to 136-3 when he combined in a 76-run partnership with Patel, who made a quickfire 43 off 23 balls.
Patel batted with lot of aggression despite sustaining a hand injury during Kolkata's innings as he smashed Narine for three sixes and kept Delhi in the driving seat.
But Narine first had the wickets of Patel and Tristan Stubbs in the 14th over and then du Plessis lofted the spinner to deep mid-wicket in the 16th over which brought Kolkata back into the game.
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Impact player Ashutosh Sharma could score only seven as he tried to accelerate against Varun Chakravarthy, but his reverse sweep went straight into the hands of Narine at backward point and Mitchell Starc fell of the next delivery when he skied a simple catch to wicketkeeper Rahmanullah Gurbaz.
Vipraj Nigam’s late countercharge gave Delhi a glimmer of hope before Andre Russell clean bowled him in the final over for 38 off 19 balls as Kolkata squeezed the home team in the final five overs.
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Narine and Gurbaz featured in Kolkata’s highest opening partnership of the season when they smacked 48 runs of the first three overs with Sri Lankan fast bowler Dushmanta Chameera conceding 25 runs in one over.
Starc had Gurbaz (26 off 12 balls) caught behind off a fullish delivery outside the off stump and Narine was out plumb leg before wicket when he tried to slog sweep leg-spinner Nigam’s quickish leg-break soon after the power play.
Patel then dried up the runs and got the wickets of captain Ajinkya Rahane (26) and Venkatesh Iyer (7) as Kolkata slipped to 113-4 in the 10th over.
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Top-scorer Angkrish Raghuvanshi (44) and Rinku Singh (36) then rebuilt the innings with a 61-run partnership before both fell in the death overs.
Kolkata lost three wickets in Starc’s final over of the innings when the Australian (3-43) claimed two wickets and Russell was run out after he tried to regain the strike.