IPL 2022 | KKR’s elimination after LSG thriller marks rare occasion in tournament’s history
KL Rahul’s Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) pipped the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) in a tight hard-fought tussle on Wednesday, May 18. LSG’s opener Quinton de Kock dished out a punishing 140* while his partner KL Rahul hammered a confident 68 as the newcomer side slammed 210 without losing a wicket. However, Shreyas Iyer’s troops fell short of their target by just two runs despite some furious onslaught by Rinku Singh at the death.
KKR’s narrow defeat to the LSG means they will now be stuck with 12 points at the end of their campaign. The two-time winners, who were runners-up to Chennai Super Kings (CSK) last year, has now become the third team this season to be knocked out of the playoffs race.
IPL 2022: CSK, KKR elimination replicates 2015 occurrence
Defending champion CSK got knocked out of this year’s playoffs qualification earlier this month following their defeat to arch-rivals Mumbai Indians. In doing so, they became the second team to lose out on the final four race after the Rohit Sharma-led side.
Interestingly, CSK and KKR were the two best sides of the previous season as they both reached the final. However, their fortunes changed for the worst this time around after facing early eliminations.
CSK and KKR’s misfortunes mean that the IPL 2022 became only the second season in the tournament’s history where neither the defending champions nor the runners-up made it to the final four. The 2015 IPL edition was the first of a kind where the two best teams of the preceding year faced a league stage exit.
KKR was also one of the two teams involved in the 2015 scenario. Under the leadership of IPL legend Gautam Gambhir, KKR won the title in 2014 by defeating Kings XI Punjab (now Punjab Kings) in the final. However, the Punjab-based franchise, which topped the league stage in 2014, suffered a contrasting fate the following year as they were the season’s wooden spooners.