Kolkata Knight Riders vs Rising Pune Supergiants [IPL 2016 Match 45 |14 May 2016] Match Highlights

The crunch situation in the match demanded KKR to showcase their best talent and put the best foot forward – with a win putting them at the 2^nd spot and a loss immensely hurting their chances of qualifying to the playoffs.

The pitch at Eden Gardens suggested that spinner’s disguising the ball will play a critical role; with it being on the slower side and the Eden Gardens outfield combined meant that 150-160 was going to be a very good score.

The toss was won by Supergiants, who got IN M Ashwin and Irrfan Pathan. KKR on the other hand also made two changes of bringing IN Narine and Ankit Rajpoot.

Pune, a team that has struggled all through this season with the bat and the ball; adamant from the fact that they find themselves at the no.7 spot in the points table.

Pune yet again turned up with a disappointing batting display, losing wickets constantly and not allowing any partnership to flow. After Rahane’s dismissal for 2, Khawaja fell just 2 overs later after making 21 in 17 deliveries. Some resistance was shown by Bailey through his 33 in 27 balls but once he got out; the Pune innings never got going.

Pathan’s run out in the 14^th over and Perera’s dismissal in the 17^th just at the stroke of rain ruined any chances of Pune reaching to any respectable total of 140-150.

At the stroke of rain, the score of 103 was all that Pune could manage after 17.4 overs. The innings didn’t resume for the next 2 hours which meant that Duckworth Lewis was used and a score of 66 was set for KKR in 9 overs.

The KKR chase began on a shocking note, losing 2 wickets in the first over of the innings to Ashwin – Uthappa’s stump and Gambhir’s LBW (Gambhir was visibly disappointed with the decision of the umpire but the hawkeye adjudged that it was the right decision).

It seemed at this point that KKR might be under great trouble, perhaps even unable to chase the modest total of 66 in 9 overs with Ashwin (R) extracting spin from the pitch but a mind-boggling innings from Yusuf- full of powerful shots that we associate with him, seized the match for KKR.

Yusuf made 37 in 18 deliveries, taking both the Ashwin’s to the cleaners and smashing Zampa’s 1^st over for 8 runs – KKR won the match in just 5 overs, which will definitely give a boost to their run rate which might prove to be deciding factor in terms of determining teams that qualify for the play-offs.

By virtue of this win, KKR move to 2^nd in the points table and Pune are now the team at the bottom of the table, with Kings XI Punjab moving to 7^th due to their win against Mumbai Indians.

The season has been one of disappointment for Dhoni, with his team still have 2 matches to go – the only hope is to get at least another win under their belt to get some sort of positivity going.

There are potentially 6 teams still alive to make the playoffs – with only Punjab and Pune out of the race to the playoffs.

KKR vs RPS Squads for 14 May 2016 Match 45

Kolkata Knight Riders

Gautam Gambhir (C), Piyush Chawla, John Hastings, Brad Hogg, Jason Holder, Sheldon Jackson, Kuldeep Yadav, Chris Lynn, Manan Sharma, Morne Morkel, Colin Munro, Sunil Narine, Manish Pandey, Yusuf Pathan, Ankit Rajpoot, Andre Russell, Rajagopal Sathish, Shakib Al Hasan, Jaydev Unadkat, Robin Uthappa (W), Suryakumar Yadav, Umesh Yadav

Rising Pune Supergiants

MS Dhoni (C) (W), Ankit Sharma, Baba Aparajith, Ravichandran Ashwin, Murugan Ashwin, Ankush Bains, Rajat Bhatia, Scott Boland, Deepak Chahar, Ashok Dinda, Francois du Plessis, Peter Handscomb, Jaskaran Singh, Mitchell Marsh, Albie Morkel, Ishwar Pandey, Irfan Pathan, Thisara Perera, Kevin Pietersen, Ajinkya Rahane, Ishant Sharma, RP Singh, Steve Smith, Saurabh Tiwary, Adam Zampa, Usman Khawaja, George Bailey

RPS vs KKR Video Recap

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OeGGEhigvj8

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