Kolkata: Kolkata Knight Riders registered a comprehensive win against Rajasthan Royals as they defeated them by eight wickets with 16 balls to spare at Eden Gardens on Friday. Yusuf Pathan showed some aggressive intent and smashed three fours and as many sixes to lead his side to victory and was ably supported by Jacques Kallis in this endeavour.
Kallis continued with his brilliant all-round performance as he scored 30 runs and also took a wicket. Pathan and Kallis added 78 runs for the third wicket.
Chasing 133, KKR got a flying start as Gautam Gambhir and Manvinder Bisla added 41 runs in first five overs. But Gambhir got stumped at the score of 12 runs and was sent back to pavilion by Dinesh Yagnik who was lightening quick behind the stumps. Bisla followed him very soon to the dug-out as he got out after contributing 29 runs in which he scored four boundaries and one six.
Jacques Kallis and Yusuf Pathan came into the centre and things changed for KKR thereafter. Though Kallis was watchful, Pathan started dealing in boundaries once he found his feet moving. After that it was all about how quickly they reach that target. They added 78 runs for the third-wicket partnership to register an emphatic win. With 16 balls to spare, KKR won this match and Yusuf Pathan was declared man-of-the-match.
Earlier Rajasthan Royals started off quite slowly as they added just 20 runs in their first three overs and lost the wicket of Ajinkya Rahane. But Shane Watson kept the flow of runs going. Meanwhile James Faulkner also departed pretty soon after scoring just one run which brought Sanju Samson in the middle. Sanju and Watson batted well as they added 44 runs for the third-wicket partnership. But with fall of couple of wickets in quick succession, RR were pushed on to the back-foot. Shane Watson and Dinesh Yagnik got out after contributing 35 runs and 10 run respectively.
Sunil Narine and Sachithra Senanayake bowled brilliantly and picked up three wickets for KKR and gave away just 46 runs amongst between them. Samson did show some spark as he kept hitting those boundaries which gave RR a ray of hope for put up a big score. He added 34 runs with Owais Shah for the fifth wicket to make sure that his side could post an impossible score. Samson departed after scoring 40 runs and it was Rajat Bhatia who got this big-wicket. Kallis uprooted the leg-stump of Owais Shah and sent him back to the pavilion in the final over and restricted Rajasthan Royals to 133 for the loss of six wickets.
