KKR and KXIP gain upper hand

Our Correspondent

Kolkata Knight Riders registered a 59-run win over Delhi Capitals in Abu Dhabi on October 24 in the 42^nd match of the Dream 11 IPL season in the UAE.

The Man of the Match was spinner Varun Chakravarthy who bowled a splendid 5 wicket for 20 runs. Batsmen Sunil Narine (64 runs off 32 balls) and Nitish Rana (81 off 52) had a 115-run partnership from 59 balls and helped Kolkata score 194/6 in 20 overs.

Delhi won the toss and elected to bowl. Paceman Anrich Nortje claimed two early wickets, and a Kolkata collapse seemed likely when team was at 42/3. But Narine and Rana revived the innings for KKR.

Chasing the score, Delhi had their first shock when Ajinkya Rahane fell in the first ball of the innings. Despite the efforts of Shreyas Iyer (47 off 38) and Rishabh Pant (27 off 33), Delhi did not recover. Pat Cummins took two scalps followed by Chakravarthy’s quick wickets.

With the win, Kolkata shifted to the fourth position on the points table.

Punjab outsmarts Hyderabad in Match 43

The next thrilling fight was between Kings XI Punjab and Sunrisers Hyderabad where the former snatched a surprise 12-run win at Dubai on October 24.

KXIP was restricted to a paltry 126 for five after being sent to bat first, and Sunrisers seemed to have the upper hand batting at 56/1. The fall of the wickets of Manish Pandey (15) at 100/4 in 16.1 overs and Vijay Shankar (26) at 110 in 17.5 overs gave bowlers Chris Jordan (4-0-17-3) and Arshdeep Singh (3.5-0-23-3) fillip to produce two magical final overs and give Punjab team their fourth consecutive win. Jordan was declared man of the match.

Nicholas Pooran topscored for Kings XI with an unbeaten 32 while captain KL Rahul fell earlier for 27. None of the Punjab batsmen could gain big scores and wickets kept falling. Sandeep Sharma, who reached 100 IPL wickets this evening, took 2/29, Jason Holder 2/27 and Rashid Khan 2/14.