Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) led by Shreyas Iyer clashed with those led by Sanju Samson Rajasthan Royals (RR) in the 31st match of the Indian Premier League 2024 (IPL 2024) at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata on Tuesday, April 16.

After being invited to bat first, Sunil Narine and Phil Salt tried to give their team a good start. Salt were dismissed for 10 but his opening partner Sunil Narine took his time before launching an attack on the RR bowlers.

He batted beautifully and finally reached his first century in T20 cricket. Sunil Narine smashed 109 runs off 56 balls, with 13 fours and 6 sixes. Other batsmen also made decent contributions as KKR posted 223/6 on the board.

In defending the target, the KKR players got it right and kept picking wickets at regular intervals. Although the KKR players could not dismiss Jo Buttler, they made sure to put pressure on him by not allowing the batsmen at the other end to stay in the middle.

Despite being in control throughout the innings, KKR allowed RR to complete the huge chase as Jos Buttler played blind. The England captain scored 107 runs off 60 balls, with 9 fours and 6 sixes, and helped his team win the match by 2 wickets.

Speaking after the match, Shreyas Iyer said the loss against RR was a bitter pill to swallow. Shreyas Iyer also felt that a loss like that at the beginning of the tournament was good for them as something like that in the second half would have been a big blow. Shreyas Iyer said:

“(Was this game a bitter pill to swallow?) I would support that, in reality, the emotions were a roller coaster, I certainly didn’t think we would get to this situation. It’s a fun game at the end of the day, it was surprising. I got the ball cleanly and timing them so well, I have to take it on the chin and move on.

“I mean, right now you see you throw your best pitches, a little bit of hit or miss and you get sent off the ground, it’s good that it happened now instead of it happening in the later stages of the tournament. Good learning for us. “

Shreyas Iyer praised Sunil Narine for his heroics in the match and said that they were happy to have him in KKR. Shreyas Iyer said:

“(About Sunil Narine) He is a great asset to the team and he shows it in every game, he is that type of player who capitalizes on every moment. I am glad he is part of our team.”

On his decision to hand over the final to Varun Chakravarthy, Shreyas Iyer said that Jos Buttler was going crazy so they decided to take the pace off the ball. Shreyas Iyer explained:

“Because I was hitting it so well, I thought I’d take the pace off the ball and gave it to Chakaravarthy and there’s a lot of pressure when you have five defenders inside the circle, you basically have no idea where to throw. It’s just about relaxing. And rejuvenating, “It was also very wet today. It’s important to learn from our mistakes and recover. We have a few days off. At the end of the day, it was a great game, a few overs here and there, but I’m very proud of the boys.”

Kolkata Knight Riders current position in IPL 2024 standings and result of their previous match

Before their clash against Rajasthan Royals (RR), Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) were placed at the number 2 position in the points table of Indian Premier League 2024. They got four wins and 8 points from 5 games. After the conclusion of the clash between KKR and RR, they retained second place with 8 points in their bag.

Talking about their previous match in the Indian Premier League 2024, it was against the Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata on April 14.

While bowling first, the Knight Riders were right on the money as they restricted the Super Giants to a below-par score of 161/7 and then chased it down in 15.4 overs to record a comprehensive victory. The Shreyas Iyer-led team won the match by 8 wickets with 26 balls remaining.

Phil Salt won the Man of the Match award against LSG for his exceptional contribution with the bat and good glove work behind the stumps. The keeper-batsman scored 89* runs off 47 balls and also caught 2 catches. The KKR captain also contributed a run-a-ball 38 during the chase.

Talking about the team’s bowling unit, Mitchell Starc emerged as the top performer with his figures of 3/28. Apart from Starc, Vaibhav Arora, Sunil Narine, Varun Chakravarthy and Andre Russell got one wicket each.