Mumbai: Riding on Jos Buttler's 103 off 61 and Yuzvendra Chahal's five-wicket haul Rajasthan Royals (RR) handed Kolkata Knight Riders a 7-run loss in the IPL 2022 match here at here at Brabourne Stadium on Monday.
Buttler's ton and Shimron Hetmyer's 26 off 13 quickfire guided Rajasthan to 217/5 -- season's highest score in the 2022. In reply, Kolkata were bundled out on the score of 210.
Chasing a huge 218-run target, KKR lost Sunil Narine on the very first delivery of the innings through suicidal runout to reach 57/1 in the powerplay.
Then, Aaron Finch and Shreyas Iyer brought up KKR's first century partnership in the 2022 season. The duo stitched 107-run partnership for the second wicket before Prasidh Krishna gave RR a much needed breakthrough by removing dangerous looking Finch for the score of 58 off 28 in the 9th over.
In the 13th over, Nitish Rana got caught by Buttler off Yuzvendra Chahal's slower googly after being dropped by Hetmyer. Andre Russell then came to join skipper but Ravichandran Ashiwn didn't let him stay as he clean bowled him on the first delivery he faced.
Then Shreyas' few big hits turned the momentum into KKR but Chahal quickly turned the table as he dismissed Venkatesh in the 17th over. In the same over he got rid of set batter Shreyas and put an end to his 85 run knock.
In the next ball he trapped Shivam Mavi for first ball duck. Chahal completed his hat-trick by sending Pat Cummins back for duck and reduced KKR 180-8. He claimed four wickets in the 17th over and conceded just 2 runs.
The drama continued as Umesh Yadav attempted few big hits and took KKR closer to victory as it needed 18 off 12 to win. But the game kept changing its face as, Sheldon Jackson got caught by Krishna off the bowling of Obed McCoy on the second ball of the final over.
He then removed Umesh (21 off 9) to skittle out KKR on 210 and handed KKR its third successive loss.
For RR, Chahal claimed five-fer after conceding 40 runs and McCoy got two. Krishna and Ashwin scalped one wicket apiece.
Earlier, Rajasthan had a flying start after put into bat first, as it posted 60 runs in the powerplay without losing a wicket. In the seventh over Buttler completed his fifty in 29 balls.
Buttler continued wreaking havoc on RR bowlers with big hits and established a 97-run opening stand with Padikkal before the latter got dismissed in the 10th over.
Narine clean bowled Padikkal for the score of 24 off 18 and skipper Sanju Samson came to join Buttler in the run fest. The duo stitched 67-run partnership off 34 balls, which Russell broke by dismissing Samson, who holed out to deep mid-wicket and handed an easy catch to Mavi.
In the 17th over, Buttler brought up his third IPL ton -- studded with nine boundaries and five maximums. In the same over, Cummins ended his scintillating knock by sending him back for the score of 103.
After Buttler's dismissal Rajasthan lost two wickets in quick succession. In the first ball of the 18th over, Narine cleaned up Riyan Parag, who went straight over his head towards long-off where Cummins ran and caught it overhead. He stumbled and lobbed it towards Mavi, who completed the catch one-handed with a jump.
In the penultimate over, Mavi removed Karun Nair (3). Then, Hetmyer hit two sixes and a boundary in the finals over to take RR to 217/5.
For KKR, Narine scalped 2 wickets. Mavi, Cummins and Russell bagged one each. (UNI)