Not a do-or-die match for both teams but both Lions and Knight Riders have played 12 matches each with 14 points on the tally. The only difference is that Knight Riders have a better net run rate. With RCB strongly coming into contention for a play-offs spot, both Knight Riders and Lions will have to fight out hard to get an upper hand in the final stage of the league matches.
Suresh Raina won the important toss at Kanpur and chose to field. The pitch had a bit of help for the bowlers and Lions wanted to utilize that. Gambhir fell early, thanks another run-out and then came the carnage of Dwayne Smith. He destroyed the top order by picking up 4 wickets in 4 overs. Yusuf Pathan top scored for Knight Riders with 36 runs in 36 balls. As a result KKR scored 124 runs in their 20 overs.
Dwayne Smith had a good day with ball, but it wasn’t the same with the bat. Coming in to chase, Smith was caught behind on the first ball of the innings itself from Ankit Rajpoot. McCullum couldn’t stay for long either. It was the captain Suresh Raina, who took the responsibility of taking the team through in a fairly small chase. Suresh Raina got a half-century and ensured a comfortable win for the team.
Here’s a look at some of the exciting stats and records from this match –
Most run-outs in T20s – Gautam Gambhir has now been run-out 21 times in T20 Cricket. This is the most number of times a player has been run-out in T20 Cricket.
Best Bowling efforts for Smith – Bowling figures of Dwayne Smith read 4 wickets and 8 runs in 4 overs. This is his first 4 wicket haul in IPL. His 2nd in T20 career.
18 dot balls – Dwayne Smith bowled 18 dot balls in this match. This is the most number of dot balls a bowler has bowled in a single inning in IPL 2016.
Raina back to where he belongs – Suresh Raina has now become the 2nd player in the history of IPL to score 4000 runs. He has also gone past Virat Kohli’s total of 4002 runs and has now scored most number of runs in IPL.
Success in every season – Suresh Raina and Rohit Sharma are the only two players in the history of IPL to have scored 300+ runs in all the 9 seasons of IPL.