IPL 2022 | KKR vs RR | Rinku and Nitish help Kolkata ease past Rajasthan's 152-run total

As the Indian Premier League's (IPL) caravan moved to Wankhede Stadium for Match No.47 between Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) and Rajasthan Royals (RR), the former was aided by Rinku Singh to keep their playoff hopes alive and win the match by seven wickets.

While Rajasthan had every chance to draw curtains on Kolkata's silverware dreams, they could not succeed in their plans, courtesy of a poor show with the bat and a brilliant batting masterclass by the opposition middle-order batters, Rinku Singh and Nitish Rana.

As KKR opted to field first, RR relied on the Orange Cap holder, Jos Buttler, to again hand them a strong start in the powerplay. With Devdutt Padikkal again misfiring, the onus was on Buttler to lift the Royals innings. Unfortunately for them, that could not happen as the Englishman departed after scoring a sluggish 25-ball 22.

With skipper Sanju Samson looking well set, Rajasthan's camp looked relieved. However, after a few elegant shots, the wicket-keeper could not provide the innings with a much-needed boost, leading to a slow-moving 54-run knock.

While Riyan Parag fired some strokes to the boundary, he could not go beyond 19 runs and fell prey to Tim Southee. Karun Nair, who made a comeback to the playing XI today, did not live up to the expectations and played run-a-ball innings.

As the death overs remained, the stage was set for Shimron Hetmyer to smoke some big blows. Even though the West Indian smashed 27 runs off just 13 deliveries, his last two-overs heroics could only take RR to 152 runs in their stipulated overs.

With a great spin-duo of Ravichandran Ashwin and Yuzvendra Chahal in their ranks - Rajasthan Royals would have seen 152 runs as a defendable total. However, Ashwin and Chahal couldn't contribute with wickets, similar to their misery with the bat.

KKR stepped out to chase the target with yet another opening combination. However, the plan again failed as Baba Indrajith, and Aaron Finch fell for 15 and four runs respectively.

Shreyas Iyer aimed to take the game deep. He did manage to calm things down, but a nothing-delivery from Boult broke his patience.

Just when it seemed that KKR would again sink into the trough, Nitish Rana and Rinku Singh brought them back on track. However, while Rana played according to the situation, Rinku took it upon him to go along the required run rate.

As the Knights reached closer to the target, a few of the vital hits coming from Rinku's bat helped the side edge past RR's total and end their five-match losing streak in the ongoing season.

For his match-winning 42-run knock, Rinku Singh was adjudged Player of the Match.

Brief scores:

Rajasthan Royals - 152/5 (20)

Sanju Samson 54(49), Shimron Hetmyer 27*(13);

Tim Southee 46/2 (4), Umesh Yadav 24/1 (4)

Kolkata Knight Riders - 158/3 (19.1)

Nitish Rana 48*(37), Rinku Singh 42*(23);

Trent Boult 25/1 (4), Kuldeep Sen 28/1 (3.1)

Kolkata Knight Riders won by seven wickets.