IPL 2021 | Eliminator: Hits & Flops as Narine sails Knight Riders’ fairy tale comeback across another hurdle

“It was Sunil Narine’s world today and all of us were living in it,” might be the only apt description of the feat achieved by the magician with the ball. He also turned out to be the crusader with the bat today for the Kolkata Knight Riders as they defeated Royal Challengers Bangalore by four wickets to book their berth in the second Qualifier. 

With this victory, in which they chased down 138, the Knight Riders have also come one place closer to what could be termed as a fairytale comeback, from the first leg of the Indian Premier League. At the end of the first leg, the team from Kolkata was sitting at the seventh position in the table with just two wins out of seven games. 

While Narine was definitely the man of the hour with his amazing all-around performance, there were others too who managed to make themselves on a day truly dominated by the Trinidadian. Some did with impressive performances while others with below par. All of them however will be discussed in the section called Hits and Flops. 

Hits

Sunil Narine

The wily old fox was just phenomenal today. When Narine got the ball in hand in the 10th over i.e. after the mayhem of the Powerplay in which RCB were really good and also just after when Virat Kohli and KS Bharat, the two Bangalore batters had started to struggle in finding gaps. 

In his very first over, the mystery spinner removed Bharat who looked in all sorts of problems anyways. Skipper Morgan then decided to change the ends of Narine and when he came back in his second spell, Kohli’s stumps were castled by an off-spinner that barged through his defences. In his third over he broke through the defences of yet another great, this time it was AB de Villiers. 

The fact that other bowlers were bowling equally well made Narine concentrate more on wicket-taking than run-saving plans and as a result, in his last over, he got rid of Glenn Maxwell and thus finally the dreams of RCB reaching at least 150 had to be put back. 

When Narine came out to bat, the situation was equally tense with the top three of the KKR batting lineup returning back to the pavilion. The ball doing all sorts of things off the wicket and the remaining batters not in great form, while his team needed to get the 60 runs anyhow. 

Virat helped solve the problem for KKR and Narine as he introduced a cutter bowler Dan Christain into the attack. The 33-year-old took the opportunity in a flash and hit the Aussie for three sixes in an over to get the match out of the reach of the Bangalore side, before eventually getting out on 26 from 15 balls. 

Lockie Ferguson

If Narine was the fire that KKR had today, Lockie Ferguson was the one who started it. With the wicket of Devdutt Padikkal, the Kiwi paid up for the expensive over before that. After breaking the partnership, Ferguson then came back in the 19th over and removed Shahbaz Ahmed to stop the flow of runs. 

Shahbaz would have been out in the Sunil Narine over itself if Shubaman Gill wouldn’t have dropped a sitter near the boundary line at mid-wicket. That catch would have helped the Caribbean man get his second five-wicket haul in IPL history. 

Anyways, Ferguson finished his spell with figures of 2/30 in four overs and was the only one apart from Narine to get among wickets for KKR. 

Yuzvendra Chahal

It sure was a wicket that helped spinners. And thus it was a mystery as to why Shahbaz Ahmed was never introduced to the attack by skipper Kohli. However, the one spinner that was introduced, turned out to be simply brilliant, bowling with an economy of just four throughout his four-over spell. 

Chahal created pressure and with the help of his googly, was able to dismiss Rahul Tripathi and Nitish Rana, the two players who have been in good touch in this tournament. But in the end, it wasn’t good enough to win the game. 

Flops

Dan Christian

Playing Christian in the playing XI was in itself controversial given the fact that he hasn’t been good in any of the games that he has played. With the likes of Kyle Jamieson present in the squad, it really blew everyone’s mind as to why has a 38-year-old still been playing in the XI. 

Christian was bad today as well as he not only gave away 29 runs in just 10 balls that he bowled but also got run out in the 20th over while batting, making only nine runs off 8 balls. Thus a poor selection by the RCB management eventually resulted in losing their most important game of this season. 

Virat Kohli

More than for being unable to get his strike rate up or even equal to powerplay period, post it, what lacked today in the RCB skipper was his game reading skills. Not bowling your spinner when the bowling is doing all sorts of deeds on the wicket and when two of your own spinners are showing it, was the most basic error Kohli made. Shahbaz Ahmed would have been the go-to man instead of Dan Christian in all probability. 

As far as his weakness to off-spin was concerned, it was once again exposed by Sunil Narine as he got the Indian skipper bowled, breaching his defences. Thus, apart from a decent start, Kohli, who has now captained his last game in the IPL, as he himself said that he would stay with RCB but won’t captain it, was off-colour totally. 

KKR would now welcome Delhi Capitals in Sharjah and have more than decent enough chance to reach the final in Dubai, especially with the way they have been bowling.