Sunil Narine picked up three wickets as Kolkata Knight Riders bounced back from back-to-back defeats to sour their former captain Gautam Gambhir’s homecoming.
The match against Delhi Daredevils was billed as a Gambhir v Kolkata encounter, given that the opener had spent seven years of his IPL career leading Kolkata. However, Nitish Rana’s commanding half-century and Andre Russell’s belligerent 12-ball 41 helped the hosts post 200-9 before Narine and Kuldeep Yadav shared six wickets to complete a 71-run win.
Rishabh Pant (43 in 26) and Glenn Maxwell (47 in 22) shone briefly for the visitors, but none of the other batsmen could get going as Delhi were bowled out for 129 in 14.2 overs.
Jason Roy, coming off a matchwinning 91, was thwarted in the first over by Chawla, while Narine and Yadav picked up crucial wickets in the middle overs.
Giving the bowlers a formidable target to defend was Rana’s feisty 35-ball 59. As vital was the push Russell gave. Kolkata, after 14 overs, were 123-4 and it seemed they might fall short of a par score. Russell, then, smoked six sixes in 12 deliveries as the hosts collected 54 runs in the next three overs.
Gambhir admitted that the bowlers could not quite execute the plans they had for the Jamaican. “Sometimes when someone like Andre Russell starts to take on a bowler, it becomes really tough. We had different plans for him, we could have bowled round the wicket as well. A lot of balls we bowled into his radar and we know the strength that he has got.”
