IPL 2022: Match 19, KKR vs DC – Who Said What

The Delhi Capitals snapped their two-match losing streak with an emphatic 44-run win over the Kolkata Knight Riders at the Brabourne Stadium in Mumbai on April 10. At the same time, DC also halted KKR’s winning run by getting the better of them in the afternoon game which witnessed yet another total of over 200 runs being scored.

KKR skipper Shreyas Iyer won the toss and decided to bowl first. The DC openers did not mind as Prithvi Shaw and David Warner added 93 runs for the first wicket. While Warner scored 61 runs from 45 deliveries, Shaw also made it matter with a 29-ball 51.

Kolkata bowlers tried to get back into the contest after accounting for both the batters, but that was not to be as the middle-order duo of Axar Patel and Shardul Thakur powered Delhi to a mammoth 215/5 from their 20 overs. Thakur (29* of 11 balls) and Patel (22* from 14 deliveries) added an unbeaten 49-run stand for the sixth wicket.

KKR lose the plot in their run chase

In reply, the Kolkata Knight Riders were reduced to 38/2 in the fifth over before Nitish Rana and Shreyas Iyer added 69 runs for the third wicket. Rana scored a 20-ball 30 whereas Iyer was the lone half-centurion for KKR, scoring 54 runs from 33 deliveries at a strike rate of 163.6.

Once the duo was dismissed, the middle-order batters could not make much of an impact as KKR lost the plot. Shardul Thakur completed the formalities by picking up the last two wickets in the final over. Kuldeep Yadav was the pick of the bowlers with figures of 4/35.

Losing skipper, Shreyas Iyer said:

“They got off to a very good start right from the first over. Prithvi took on the bowlers. To be honest we were clueless what to do at that point. The wicket was playing really good. They built a good partnership at the start and carried the momentum. Really looked like a good batting pitch. Three games we’ve won chasing, just didn’t work out today. The positives we can take – the intent we showed. Even though we didn’t get off to a great start, the middle phase we played out really well from 7 to 15 overs. After that we wanted to continue with the run rate of 12rpo. It’s not a difficult thing to do as a batsman but if you pace out the innings well, especially in the middle-overs, it’s something we can take forward.”

Winning skipper, Rishabh Pant said:

“We would have fielded first, but as a batting unit, we just wanted to put pressure in the powerplay. Shardul then finished the match really well at the end. In these conditions when there is no dew, you know a 170-180 total is good but 200 is very tough. It is more challenging for a team batting first. Kuldeep has been working for one year but hasn’t been getting chances. We are backing him here fully. We wanted momentum to keep going, and we knew that if we lost wickets, we’d have Sarfaraz in the end, and that is why we sent Axar and Shardul over him. As a cricketer and as a team, there is a lot of room for improvement.”

Player of the Match, Kuldeep Yadav said:

“I thought I’d reach the ball and I didn’t  want to leave my wicket. There wouldn’t have been any regrets had I not taken it because I gave it my all. It is important to pause and think what you are bowling. It is a very good wicket to bat on and you need a lot of heart to bowl on it. The side boundaries are slightly longer and hence the lengths become very important. It was gripping, so I was mixing my pace as well. Shreyas was batting well and I wanted to make him guess. It was a very big wicket. I thought his wicket was personally very important. He was the main batsman for the team. I am not trying too much. I am just focussing on my rhythm ever since I came back into the Indian team. The lengths were really good in all my wickets against both Shreyas and Cummins. The team is really backing me a lot. Rishabh has been very calm and has been guiding me from behind the stumps. I am enjoying a lot.”