Wednesday 3 April 2013

PEPSI IPL 2013 Match - 1: KKR vs DD


Defending champions Kolkata Knight Riders kick-started their IPL 2013 campaign in grand style winning their first match of the competition in convincing fashion. The match was set up for KKR by their mystery spinner, Sunil Narine, who helped bowl out the Delhi Daredevils for 128, a total chased down in 18.4 overs. KKR won the contest by six wickets.

Chasing 129 to win on a slow Eden Garden's pitch, KKR started off slowly as Irfan Pathan bowled a first over maiden. Ashish Nehra got the initial strike sending Manvinder Bisla (4) packing. Knight Rider's captain, Gautam Gambhir smashed a boundary and a six off consecutive deliveries in Pathan's second over and with that the KKR bandwagon got rolling. Gambhir along with Jaques Kallis (23) added 47 runs for the second wicket, before the latter was caught at deep midwicket off Shahbaz Nadeem.

Gambhir led from the front cutting and driving aggressively before Johan Botha trapped him leg before for 43. But by then KKR’s asking rate was down to under six. Eoin Morgan (14*) and Yusuf Pathan (18*) saw the team through to a well deserved win with eight balls remaining.

Earlier in the evening, KKR who won the toss, put DD in and were rewarded immediately as Brett Lee castled Unmukt Chand's (0) off the very first delivery. DD who were missing the services of Kevin Pietersen and Jesse Ryder were further weakened by the absence of Virender Sehwag due to an injury.

Bhatia struck twice in three balls, removing Naman Ojha (9) and Botha (7) to reduce DD to 88 for 5 and Narine followed it up with the wickets of Irfan Pathan (4) and Russell Arnold (4) to leave DD struggling to put together a partnership. Skipper Mahela Jayawardene played the lone hand for Daredevils as he kept the innings together with a cautious 66 from 52 balls. He fell at the end of the 19th over, his team eventually bundled out for 128 runs from their 20 overs.

Sunil Narine



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