If it was Jos Buttler in the first half, Yuzvendra Chahal was certainly the man for Rajasthan Royals in the second at the Brabourne Stadium in Mumbai on Monday.
Buttler’s imperious 61-ball 103 first powered the Royals to a massive total of 217 for 5 after they were put in to bat by Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR). Thereafter, Chahal (5/40) weaved his magic with the ball just when it was needed, taking as many as four wickets in the game-turning 17th over, including a hat-trick, to help the Royals to a seven-run win over the Knights.
The narrow win took the Royals, who made three changes in their XI (Trent Boult coming in for Jimmy Neesham, Obed McCoy replacing Kuldeep Sen and Karun Nair in place of Rassie van der Dussen) to second in the standings with eight points, while KKR (with six points) remain at No.6.
The Knights, however, tried their best to make a match of it even after the hammering their bowlers, barring Sunil Narine (2/21) in his 150th appearance for them, got from Buttler early on. Opener Aaron Finch (58 off 28 balls), making amends after going for a non-existent run that ran Narine (promoted at the top of the order) out in the first ball of KKR’s run chase, and captain Shreyas Iyer (85 off 51 balls) took full advantage of some very mediocre bowling by the Royals and equally ordinary field-placement by their skipper Sanju Samson.
The Royals skipper, in fact, had almost dropped the game when he spilled an easy take after his counterpart Shreyas had mis-hit one down the leg side in the 15th over off McCoy.
Shreyas continued batting brilliantly, making the Royals pay for their captain’s botch-up, till Chahal bowled that magical over. With 40 required off the last four overs, the leg-spinner first had Venkatesh Iyer stumped. Then he foxed the dangerous-looking Shreyas by varying the flight, had Shivam Mavi hole out at the deep and then extracted just a little bit of turn to send Pat Cummins back to record a remarkable hat-trick.
Umesh Yadav, after a poor show with the ball, unleashed some meaty blows to keep KKR’s hopes alive. However, McCoy (2/41) held his nerve in the final over, helping the Royals bowl out KKR for 210 in 19.4 overs. The left-arm pacer ensured that the brilliance of Buttler and Chahal didn’t go in vain.
Credit, though, should also go to Ravichandran Ashwin, who executed the carrom ball to perfection that cleaned up Andre Russell off the first ball he faced.
