A dominant Kolkata Knight Riders produced a brilliant bowling effort after their batters’ sensational display of power-hitting as they thrashed a lacklustre Delhi Capitals by 106 runs and moved to the top of the IPL table in Visakhapatnam on Wednesday. Sunil Narine showcased his batting prowess with a blistering 85 while teenager Angkrish Raghuvanshi (54 off 27) impressed with a fluent fifty on his IPL batting debut as KKR posted an imposing 272/7, five runs short of the highest total in the tournament’s history. The Capitals never looked like they were in the game be it with the ball or the bat. They crumbled under the pressure of the mammoth total.
Skipper Rishabh Pant (55) scored his second consecutive half century while Tristan Stubbs (54) too hit a fifty but it was in a lost cause as DC folded for 166 in 17.2 overs to suffer their third loss of the season.
KKR taking the top spot meant that Rajasthan Royals slipped to the second position. Meanwhile, DC too lost two spots to go to the ninth spot. Punjab Kings rose to the 7th position while Royal Challengers Bengaluru moved to 8th.
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Continuing his explosive run, Narine punished all Delhi bowlers alike, sending the ball over the boundary rope seven times. He also hit seven fours in his 39-ball stay. The Capitals were guilty of dropping him on 53 and Narine made his opponents suffer as he notched his highest-ever score in T20 cricket.
Raghuvanshi (54 off 27 balls), who didn’t get to bat in his first IPL match against Royal Challengers Bengaluru, also fired on all cylinders, complementing Narine as the pair shared an explosive 104-run stand off 48 balls.
With Andre Russell (41 off 19 balls) and Rinku Singh (26 off 8 balls) also getting the big hits, batting looked like a child’s play for KKR.
With the ball, pacer Vaibhav Arora and KKR’s record buy Australian fast bowler Mitchel Starc deflated the chase in the powerplay itself, as they got rid of Delhi’s top four of Prithvi Shaw (10), Mitchell Marsh (0), Abhishek Porel (0) and David Warner (18).
Pant and Stubbs stitched a 93-run partnership, and even though they managed to score quickly, the required run rate jumped to over 20 runs per over and there was only one result possible.
Earlier, Delhi bowlers produced a forgettable performance as they conceded the highest total in the team’s history. KKR hit as many as 18 sixes and 28 fours.
Narine hit his first of many boundaries when he creamed a short ball by Khaleel Ahmed to deep point.
The West Indian took a special liking for veteran pacer Ishant Sharma, collecting 26 runs from the fourth over that included three sixes and two fours, giving a glimpse of what was to come.
At the other end Phil Salt hit a few before he was dropped by David Warner, but the Englishman couldn’t make use of the reprieve, getting out in the very next ball to bring Raghuvanshi to the middle.
The 18-year-old hit his very first ball of the IPL for a boundary and that was followed by another four.
KKR continued to hit boundaries aplenty, amassing 88 runs in the powerplay as DC bowlers struggled to find ways to stop them.
DC seemed to make inroads by dismissing Narine and Raghuvanshi in consecutive overs but Russell had other plans.
The DC bowlers were guilty of feeding the all-rounder with full tosses which he dispatched to the boundary with ease.
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