Kolkata Knight Riders registered an easy win in the 61st match of IPL 2023 on Sunday. Interestingly, KKR beat CSK at the MA Chidambaram Stadium for the first time since the year 2012, when they won the final. Chennai won the toss and opted to bat. Coming to bat first, CSK batters managed to score 144/6 in the 20 overs. In response, Kolkata batters chased the target in just 18.3 overs and won the game by 6 wickets.
KKR have so far won 6 out of 13 matches and have 12 points. On the other hand, CSK have 15 points and need to win their next match in order to directly qualify for the playoffs.
Playing first, CSK got off to a strong start. Ruturaj Gaikwad got dismissed after scoring 17 runs off 13 balls. However, it got difficult for the upcoming batters to score runs as Conway was dismissed after scoring 30 runs off 28 balls. Rahane went back to the hut after scoring 16 and Rayudu scored 4 runs. Shivam Dube scored 48 runs off 34 balls and took the score to 140. Ravindra Jadeja played a slow innings but contributed 20 runs. Sunil Narine became the best bowler for KKR with two wickets for 15 runs in 4 overs. Varun Chakaravarthy also got two wickets. Shardul Thakur and Vaibhav Arora took one wicket each.
Coming for the chase, KKR lost early wickets as Rahmanullah Gurbaz 1 (4), Venkatesh Iyer 9 (4) and Jason Roy 12 (15) were dismissed in the Powerplay. However, Nitish Rana 57 (44) and Rinku Singh 54 (43) stabilized the innings and registered history of guiding the team to the victory at Chepauk after 11 years.
Kolkata Knight Riders Playing XI: Rahmanullah Gurbaz(w), Jason Roy, Nitish Rana(c), Andre Russell, Rinku Singh, Shardul Thakur, Sunil Narine, Vaibhav Arora, Harshit Rana, Suyash Sharma, Varun Chakaravarthy
Chennai Super Kings Playing XI: Ruturaj Gaikwad, Devon Conway, Ajinkya Rahane, Ambati Rayudu, Shivam Dube, Moeen Ali, Ravindra Jadeja, MS Dhoni(w/c), Deepak Chahar, Tushar Deshpande, Maheesh Theekshana
