Shreyas Iyer-led Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) defeated Faf du Plessis-led Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) in match 36 of the Indian Premier League 2024 (IPL 2024) on Sunday, April 21 at Eden Gardens in Kolkata. .
The match between the two teams was absolutely exciting and went down to the last ball with the home team emerging victorious by 1 run. Batting first, KKR posted 222/6 on the board and outscored RCB for 221 runs.
At the post-match presentation ceremony, KKR captain Shreyas Iyer said that high-voltage matches exhaust the players completely. Shreyas Iyer said:
“(In close games like these) It takes a lot out of you and completely exhausts you because you go through so many emotions. It’s hard to stay calm, but I’m elated. We have two points on the scoreboard and that’s all. matters.”
Shreyas Iyer gave a strong message to his players, saying that every individual must raise his hands and take the responsibility of getting the team out of pressure situations. He seemed to be slyly attacking Mitchell Starc, who so far has not justified his auction price with his performances. Shreyas Iyer stated:
“It’s extremely difficult when the pressure is on, I feel every individual has to put their hands up and take responsibility. Russell did it by taking two wickets and completely changed the game in our favour, that kind of attitude is needed in the team.”
Shreyas Iyer further defended his bowlers, saying that the bowler is always under pressure when around 18 runs are needed from 6 balls. Shreyas Iyer explained:
“It’s a fun game, when you need 18 runs off 6 balls, the pressure is on the bowler. A six here and there, it completely changes the momentum. It’s important that we stay calm and stay in the present and make the batsman hit where “You want me to hit.”
Shreyas Iyer finally opened up about his knock and emphasized on following the routines. Shreyas Iyer said:
“We need to stick to our routines and processes and make sure we execute the things we want. It was a pivotal blow, I wanted to stay till the end and steady the ship. We were losing wickets and I wanted to stay till the end. We got to the end and finished. We got some important limits towards the end and that made me very happy.
What happened in the previous IPL 2024 match between KKR and RCB?
Shreyas Iyer-led Kolkata Knight Riders and Faf du Plessis-led team faced each other in the 10th match of the Indian Premier League 2024 on March 29 at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru and the Knight Riders defeated their opponents by 7 wickets with 19 balls remaining.
By opting to bowl first after winning the toss, KKR managed to restrict RCB to 182/6, which was a below-average total. Even that total would not have been achieved if Virat Kohli had not led from the front with his 83 runs off 59 balls. For Knight Riders, Harshit Rana and Andre Russell picked two wickets each, while Sunil Narine got one.
As far as run chasing is concerned, Sunil Narine (47) and Phil Salt (30) were brilliant with the bat as they added 86 runs in 39 balls. After the dismissal of the openers, KKR’s Iyers Shreyas Iyer and Venkatesh Iyer added 75 runs in 44 balls to take RCB out of the game and completed the run chase in 16.5 overs.