IPL 2021: KKR vs RR – Kolkata thrash Rajasthan to clear their path to the playoffs

Kolkata Knight Riders consolidated their place in the playoffs of IPL 2021 by beating Rajasthan Royals in their last league game in Sharjah on October 7. This was KKR’s seventh win, which should be enough for qualification if Mumbai Indians don’t win their last game. But, because of this 86-run win, Mumbai now have quite an impossible task to go past KKR’s net run rate.

Earlier in the evening, Royals’ captain Sanju Samson won the toss and elected to bowl first. Being sent into bat worked out well for KKR as their openers Venkatesh Iyer and Shubman Gill formed a solid stand. Together they put on 79 runs from 10.5 overs, on a wicket which wasn’t really conducive for batting.

Iyer made 38 runs from 35 balls while Gill went on to score 56 runs from 44 balls. Beyond this, there were some handy cameos from Rahul Tripathi, Nitish Rana, Eoin Morgan and Dinesh Karthik who made 21, 12, 13 and 14 runs respectively. All of this helped KKR to reach 171 for 4. This was the highest total achieved in Sharjah this season.

With the bat, the Royals had a poor start, losing Yashaswi Jaiswal in the first over to Shakib Al Hasan. In no time, Rajasthan were 13 for 4. After a while, they were 33 for 4 and then 35 for 7 in another collapse. Rahul Tewatia gave some respectability to Rajasthan’s innings with his 44. The chief architects of this rain wreck were Lockie Ferguson and Shivam Mavi. Ferguson ended with figures of 3 for 18 while Mavi recorded his best IPL figures of 4 for 21. The Royals were bowled out for just 85.

Top performers:

Shubman Gill:

The wicket in Sharjah was pretty difficult to bat on and KKR needed a foundation early in the innings. Gill’s knock provided exactly that. Despite struggling against low bounce, Gill managed to bat brilliantly, accumulating his second successive fifty. His knock had four fours and two sixes.

Shivam Mavi: If chasing the score was already difficult, Mavi’s spell early on rocked Rajasthan in a manner from which they couldn’t have recovered. Mavi dismissed Sanju Samson, Shivam Dube and Glenn Phillips, breaking the backbone of Royals’ middle order. He later came on to take the wicket of Rahul Tewatia.

Personal achievements/records:

• The score of 17 for 4 after the end of the powerplay was the lowest by RR since their score of 14 for 2 in a IPL 2009 game in Cape Town.
• Since the 2020 IPL, KKR has picked up 13 wickets in powerplay against Rajasthan in four games.
• Rajasthan Royals have made the lowest and second-lowest totals in IPL 2021. 85 against KKR today and 90 for 9 against Mumbai in their last game.

Way ahead:

By a result of this loss, Rajasthan are officially knocked out of the tournament while Kolkata will have to wait for the two matches tomorrow to know whether they are through or not.