After some brilliant bowling from Venkatesh Iyer and a brilliant half-century, Kolkata Knight Riders defeated Delhi Capitals by three wickets.
Kolkata Knight Riders beat Delhi Capitals by three wickets in IPL 2021 Qualifier 2 in Sharjah, after a stellar performance in the bowling department, aided by a scintillating half-century from Venkatesh Iyer. Cricket Stadium on Wednesday.
Kolkata will now take on Chennai Super Kings in the final of IPL 2021 at the Dubai International Stadium on Friday, 15 October.
Kolkata won the toss and elected to field first and it was the right decision as the pitch favored bowling so heavily. The mystery spinners from Kolkata played their spell well as they restricted Delhi to 135/5 and after that, as the dew set in, Venkatesh Iyer and Shubman Gill looked like they guided KKR to victory.
But there was a twist in the tail as Enrique Nortje and Kagiso Rabada forced the match into the death overs where Ravichandran Ashwin worked his way up to take KKR to such a level that they needed 2 balls to secure their berth in the final. But 6 runs are needed. However, Tripathi ended the match for KKR with a brilliant six.
Delhi tried their best to secure the target in the power play. They may have lost Prithvi Shaw but the run rate of 6.5 on Sharjah pitch is considered good. It was a good platform for players like Rishabh Pant and Shimron Hetmyer to come and build the innings from there.
Marcus Stoinis came on after Shaw was dismissed lbw after a superb bowling performance by Varun Chakravarthy. As Stoinis (18 off 23) looked to warm up, he was bowled by Shivam Mavi. A few overs later, Chakraborty was again turning and rolling the ball as he did too well to dismiss Dhawan on a googly as the Delhi opener went down the track to take it away but the ball stroked through. And went to Shakib Al Hasan. Who took a brilliant diving catch.
In the next over, the DC captain, Pant was dismissed for only six when he looked away but the ball hit Rahul Tripathi straight in the hands and from then on, things were not looking great for Delhi. Delhi scored 92 for four at the end of the 16th over but were then handed a lifeline when it looked like Hetmyer was caught by a brilliant catch from Shubman Gill but the TV umpire deemed Chakraborty crossing the boundary for a number. -Ball. Hetmyer hit two sixes in the very next over and finally, after Shreyas Iyer smashed 30 for 27 and especially 15 in the final over, Delhi ended a respectable innings of 135 for 5 .
KKR started the chase with 15 runs in the first two overs and openers Shreyas Iyer and Gill did well to take them to 51/0 by the end of the powerplay. He then went on to score 76/0 in a quick 10 and needed 60 off 60 balls. Iyer was exceptional in his batting as he scored 55 runs in 41 balls and put KKR in a winning position.
Shubman Gill played a brilliant innings and he scored 46 runs as KKR needed just 13 runs from the last 24 balls. But the match didn’t take off then, some brilliant deaths from Kagiso Rabada and Enrique Nortje’s bowling took the pressure of the match till the last over and Ashwin did well to hold off KKR. With six needed off the last two balls, Rahul Tripathi smashed a scintillating six to end it and steer KKR to victory.