Kolkata Knight Riders registered a surprise 10-run victory over Chennai Super Kings at the IPL match in Abu Dhabi on October 7.

Chasing a target of 168, Chennai looked set to taste victory with Shane Watson (50 off 40 balls) and Ambati Rayudu (30 off 27) at the crease. However, Rayudu’s dismissal when the score was 99/1 in 12.1 overs set off a cascade of wickets from the Chennai side. Watson, who gave a sterling performance in the previous match, was the next to go.

Kolkata bowlers especially Sunil Narine put a brake on the Chennai innings. CSK failed to keep up with the required rate and could come up only with 157-5.

Earlier, Chennai bowlers had restricted Kolkata to 167/9. Dwayne Bravo picked up three wickets for CSK while Karn Sharma, Shardul Thakur and Sam Curran took two each.

New opener Rahul Tripathi (81 off 51 balls) earned the Player of the Match award.

KKR’s celebrity focus

Kolkata Knight Riders co-owner and Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan has been in attendance at his team’s matches including at the Zayed Cricket Stadium. He watched alongside his son Aryan and daughter Suhana his team put up a commendable performance.

Meanwhile, there has been some speculations about KKR batsman Shubman Gill and Sachin Tendulkar’s daughter Sara, a 21-year-old graduate in medicine, being romantically entangled on account of her instagram posts praising his performance.

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K.L. Rahul, the Kings XI Punjab skipper, smashed an unbeaten 132 off just 69 deliveries – the first century of the 2020 season and the highest in IPL by an Indian so far – to help his team post a massive 206 for 3 and a 97-run win.

The Karnataka batsman also recorded the highest score ever by a captain in the IPL, and broke Sachin Tendulkar’s record to become the fastest Indian to reach 2,000 IPL runs, achieving the feat in 60 innings compared to Tendulkar’s 63 innings.

India as well as RCB captain Virat Kohli dropped Rahul twice – on 83 and again on 89 one over later – in the match in Dubai on September 24. Rahul, who hit 14 fours and seven sixes in his blistering attack, was adjudged player of the match. For RCB, Ravi Bishnoi took three wickets for 31 runs and Murugan Ashwin 3 for 21.

Kohli, who elected to bowl after winning the toss, acknowledged that he did not have the “best day of the office”. While he was dismissed for 1, his team was packed off for 109 in 17 overs.

Dean Jones’ death

The game started on a sombre note on account of the sudden death of Australian batsman and cricket commentator Dean Jones, who had been covering the IPL tournament from Mumbai, from a heart attack.
Players from both teams wore black armbands to honour Jones and in a pre-match show, fellow commentator and Australian Brett Lee praised the late 59-year-old as an “absolute legend”.

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