De Kock fireworks see Kolkata thrash Rajasthan in IPL. Quinton de Kock scored a quick-fire 97 not out to lead defending champions Kolkata Knight Riders to their first win of the IPL season with an eight-wicket thrashing of the Rajasthan Royals at Eden Gardens, Kolkata on Wednesday.
KKR won the toss and chose to field at Guwahati, in which the spinners Moeen Ali and Chakraborthy paired up to restrict Rajasthan to 151-9.
Kolkata chased it down in 15 balls to spare with De Kock hammering 61 off 46 balls with eight fours and six sixes.
Gulbis, keeping Booker’s score ticking along, was soon handed the perfect start, stroking a pair of boundaries before he lost opening partner Moeen, run out for five.
Skipper Ajinkya Rahane departed for a quick 18 but de Kock remained solid and with impact substitute Angkrish Raghuvanshi, who made 22, guided the side to victory in an unbroken combination of 83.
De Kock ended the game hitting Jofra Archer for six as Kolkata rebounded from its lost to Royal Challengers Bengaluru.
It was the second successive defeat for Rajasthan.
Highlights
Kolkata pacer Vaibhav Arora had earlier sent back Sanju Samson (13) as well, with Chakravarthy and Moeen then picking two wickets each in quick succession.
Regular Rajasthan captain Wicketkeeper Samson has been playing in the first three matches, but only as a batter, after suffering an injury.
With India’s Champions Trophy-winning hero Chakravarthy dismissing stand-in-skipper Riyan Parag caught behind for 25.
Moeen, who replaced the sick Sunil Narine, dried the runs with his off-spin and had the breakthrough when he got rid of Yashasvi Jaiswal for 29.
Rajasthan were reduced to 82-5 in 11 overs when the 37-year-old and Chakravarthy struck again.
The wickets just kept falling at the other end for Rajasthan, and although wicketkeeper-batsman Dhruv Jurel, scored 33 and Archer hit 16, they could only set a below-par total.
Arora, along with fellow speedster Harshit Rana, took two wickets each.
They moved to one-two down after the first six they we bowled. Rahane said, “Moeen got his chance during the middle overs and then he bowled really well there.
We have attacking batsmen, we want our players to be fearless in this format” Hats off to our bowling unit, they’re always in search of wickets. We had a chat with Moeen to pick wickets, and he did exactly that. We wanted to allow Moeen to go for it (with the bat), unfortunately that didn’t happen but he had an amazing day with the ball.
Kolkata clinched their third IPL title last year, under Shreyas Iyer who subsequently made a $3.17million switch and is now instalment captain of Punjab Kings.
On the other hand Rajasthan Royals captain Riyan Parag bemoaned the team’s batting effort
Ravichandran Ashwin added, “For example, I was looking at 170 being a par score and we were probably 20 runs short (of a par score). We obviously planned to get Quinny out earlier but he didn’t and we had to switch to trying to contain them in the middle overs,” the all-rounder said.
Parag is batting at number three for the Royals and have been named captain for the first three matches.
“The team wanted me at No. 4 last year and I did that, and now it’s No. 3, so I have to be professional about it and that’s fair,” he said. You learn from the experience and try not to repeat it, and you will go against CSK with a fresher mindset.