Yuzvendra Chahal produced his second-best spell in the IPL as Punjab Kings rattled Kolkata Knight Riders in Mullanpur. The defending champions bundled the Shreyas Iyer-led side for 111 runs and were cruising towards a massive victory in the second innings but that’s when Chahal’s wrath destroyed the momentum and changed the complexion of the game. The leg-spinner clinched four wickets as Punjab won the match by 16 runs.
The Ajinkya Rahane-led side lost their openers early as Quinton de Kock and Sunil Narine departed for two and five runs respectively. Since then, Ajinkya Rahane and Angkrish Raghuvanshi took charge and built a partnership of 55 runs. Things were well under control but that’s when Rahane departed for 17 runs. Chahal’s delivery hit his pads and upon a strong appeal, the on-field umpire raised his finger.
However, later it was found that the impact was outside the offside and Rahane would have been not out had a review been taken. Nevertheless, his dismissal brought the best out of Punjab as KKR lost wickets like a house of cards. Venkatesh Iyer, who was bought for INR 23.75 in the auction, made only seven runs off four balls. Rinku Singh, KKR’s most expensive retained player made two runs off nine balls while Andre Russell, showed very little maturity, scoring 17 runs off 11.
At one point when Russell was batting alongside Harshit Rana, it was expected the all-rounder to keep the strike. However, he risked his own wicket to take a double and keep Rana on strike. It was an extremely bad decision and it was proved in the same over when Marco Jansen clinched the wicket of the pacer.
Towards the end, Russell smacked Chahal for a couple of sixes and a four and that might have given KKR fans some hope but that was only momentary. Jansen dismissed Russell in the 16th over and it was curtains for KKR.
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