Latest News

IPL 2025: Narine’s all-round show sets up tense win for Kplkata Knight Riders

Published

3 weeks ago

2025/04/30

Priyan

Sunil Narine made a match-winning impact [Cricinfo]

Sunil Narine’s figures at one point: 2.1-0-25-0. Varun Chakravarthy at another: 3-0-31-0. In a chase of 205, having restricted a rampant Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), Delhi Capitals (DC) were in the ascendence having punished the two main KKR weapons. And then the two of them came back with a vengeance: combined, they bowled their last 17 balls for five wickets and 12 runs to get KKR’s title defence back on track.

DC’s captain Axar Patel topped up his figures of 4-0-27-2 with three sixes off Narine despite an injured bottom hand. Narine found himself captaining KKR after Ajinkya Rahane split his finger open and vice-captain Venkatesh Iyer had been substituted out. Captaining was not the only rare thing he did: he also ran KL Rahul out with a direct hit from short fine leg. His real blows came with the ball: wickets of Axar, Tristan Stubbs and top-scorer Fafdu Plesisi as DC went from 136 for 3 to 190 for 9.

Some of it was down to some ordinary bowling from DC fast bowlers, who frequently kept overpitching, but KKR were not complaining. Narine, Rahmanullah Gurbaz and Rahane took toll of the wayward overs to 91 in seven overs. They put together their best opening stand – 48 – of the year and their second-best powerplay – 79. The only problem for KKR was that all three got out in the mid-20s, leaving Rinku Singh and Angkrish Raghuvanshi with a repair job in the second half of the middle overs.

Rinku and Raghuvanshi added 61 in 7.3 overs for the fifth wicket, gave Andre Russell the perfect platform, but somehow Russell spent more time watching from the non-strikers. He faced only nine balls in three overs as wickets kept falling at the other end. Only 45 came in the last five overs, turning a great start on the best batting surface in Delhi so far into just the second-highest total there this year.

KKR might be many things but they are not conservative. They threw the new ball to AnukulRoy, in his first match of the season, to bowl at a left-hand batter, on a non-responsive pitch and with only two fielders out. He was smashed for four first ball, but an arm ball got rid of Porel immediately. Vaibhav Arora, relegated to the second over for a change, got Karun Nair lbw with a yorker. Rahul indulged in one of the most wasteful activities in any form of cricket: the quick single. So poorly judged was the run that even Narine could run him out.

Du Plessis, though, was loving the pace in the pitch after his struggles in the last match. To help du Plessis out, Axar, who spent the end of the first innings off the field with an injured left hand, took down Narine like few others have. Only once has a batter hit more sixes off Narine in an IPL innings. It was also a night when Varun seemed off, not even trying to spin the ball and getting hit off high-pace deliveries.

With du Plessis taking down pace and Axar taking care of spin, it looked like a cruise when Axar hit Narine for his third six to make it 69 required off 41 with two big hitters still in the shed. Axar just happened to hit a slower short ball straight to cover, giving Narine an opening, which he burst through with a small offbreak to Stubbs in the same over.

Now Narine the captain also got into the act. Despite overs of pace up his sleeve, he went back to Roy. Here is why: by the end of his innings, du Plessis’ strike-rate against spin was 100 and 206.25 against pace. They bowled 29 balls of spin at him, and only 16 of pace. He scored only eight off the last 13 balls he faced. Narine was there to accept the wicket when he played the desperate shot 59 required off 29.

DC still had Ashutosh Sharma and Nigam, they took 11 off the 17th over, and Narine now trusted his spin twin despite the night he had had. And Varun responded with dot, wicket, wicket to send back Ashutosh and Mitchell Starc. Game over.

KKR now have nine points from 10 games, just staying in touch with the top six. With 12 points in 10 matches, DC were now under threat of not finishing in the top two after a great start to their tournament.

Brief scores:

Kolkata Knight Riders 204 for 9 in 20 overs (Rahmanullah Gurbaz 26, Sunil Narine 27, Ajinkya Rahane 26, Angkrish Raghuvanshi 44, Rinku Singh 36, Andre Russell 17; Mitchell Starc 3-43, Dushmantha Chameera 1-36, Vipraj Nigam 2-41, Axar Patel 2-27) beat Delhi Capitals 190 for 9 in 20 overs (Faf Du Plessis 62, Karun Nair 15, Axar Patel 43, Vipraj Nigam 38; Anukul Roy 1-27, Vaibhav Arora 1-19 Varun Chakravarthy 2-39, Sunil Narine 3-29, Andre Rusell 1-22) by 14 runs

[Cricinfo]

All News Advertisement

Latest News

IPL 2025: Kishan, Sunrisers Hyderabad quicks dent Royal Challengers Bengaluru’s chances of a top-two finish

Published

18 mins ago

2025/05/24

Priyan

Ishan Kishan kept Sunrisers Hyderabad racing away after the openers fell [Cricinfo]

Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) proved to be the banana peel they were feared to be for Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB), who still remained one point behind the table leaders Gujarat Titans with Punjab Kings (PBKS) now breathing down their necks with one game in hand.

Ishan Kishan, who had fizzled out after his century in the first match with just 125 runs off 117 in ten innings since then, anchored a hyper-aggressive SRH to 231. He was as efficient an anchor could be: scoring an unbeaten 94 off 48, including 54 out of the last 86 runs SRH made as he ran out of hitting partners.

Led by Phil Salt, RCB stayed abreast with the asking rate for 14 overs, but then endured a collapse of 7 for 16 to lose by 42 runs, a net-run-rate blow that could dent their chances of ending in the top two. They have fallen below PBKS’ net run rate, who are level with them on points.

The pitch looked tricky to everyone, but within one over of batting there, Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma decided this was perhaps the best pitch they had batted on all year. They decided they needed 230-240 and went looking accordingly. Abhishek started the charge with 34 off 17, hitting three sixes and perishing trying to hit a fourth. Head was slightly slower in his 17 off ten, and was outdone by a Bhuvneshwar Kumar knuckle ball.

Two wickets down in the powerplay, SRH saw no reason to slow down. Heinrich Klassen got a couple of gifts from Suyash Sharma and smacked 24 off 13 before mis-hitting a third gift. Aniket Verma made all this look pedestrian as he hit sixes off even good balls in his nine-ball 26.

The only problem was, none of them could carry on, leaving SRH at 145 for 4 in the 12th over.

He looked sedentary in comparison but Kishan was 40 off 22 when Aniket got out. Especially with Nitish Kumar Reddy and Abhinav Manohar falling in quick succession to Romario Shepherd, it was on Kishan to make sure SRH had a finishing kick.

Kishan took charge, faced 12 balls out of 18 in his seventh-wicket stand of 43 with Pat Cummins, and ended up one hit short of another century. The hitting was clean but he had to dial down the risk a little. He did play a ramp in between.

Aware of the behaviour of the pitch, SRH looked to go into the pitch and run their fingers on the ball often. RCB, though, showed why they were so close to the top of the table. Each of the first 14 overs featured at least one boundary. Virat Kohli started the charge with 43 off 25, Salt took over spectacularly with 62 off 32, and SRH were just hanging in.

Reddy hasn’t had the best season with the bat, was untidy in the field, but then started the turnaround with the wicket of Mayank Agarwal in the 11th over. Cummins came back with the wicket of Salt, but RCB stand-in captain Jitesh Sharma hit a six first ball, and Rajat Patidar looked in decent touch. Even with those two wickets falling, RCB kept the asking rate under two runs a ball.

Reddy came back to bowl the first over without a boundary in the 15th, and then Eshan Malinga delivered the big blows. Banging the ball in in the first half had probably aided a bit of reverse. He kept nailing the yorkers, changing up with the odd slower ball. He ran out Patidar, drew a return catch from Shepherd, and handcuffed the injured Tim David, who seemed to have done his hamstring when fielding.

The dramatic slide continued to the end of the innings.

Brief scores:
Sunrisers Hyderabad 231 for 6 in 20 overs (Ishan Kishan 94*, Abhishek Sharma 34, Travis Head 17, Heinrich Klassen 24, Aniket Verma 26, Abhinav Manohar 12, Pat Cummins 13*; Bhuvenshwar Kumar 1-43, Lungi Ngidi 1-51, Suyash Sharma 1-45, Krunal Pandya 1-38, Romairo Shepherd 2-14, Krunal 1-38) beat Royal Challengers Bengaluru 189 in 19.5 overs (Phil Salt 62, Virat Kohli 43, Mayank Agrawal 11, Rajat Patidar 18, Jitesh Sharma 24; Pat Cummins 3-28, Jaydev Unadkat 1-41, Eshan Malinga 2-37, Harsh Dubev 1-20, Nitish Kumar Reddy 1-13) by 42 runs

[Cricinfo]

Latest News

Veteran actress Malini Fonseka passes away at the age of 76

Published

55 mins ago

2025/05/24

Priyan

It has been reported that veteran Sri Lankan actress and former member of parliament, Malini Senehelatha Fonseka, popularly known as ‘Malini Fonseka’ or the “Queen of Sri Lankan Cinema,” has passed away this morning (24) at the age of 76, while receiving treatment at a private hospital in Colombo.

Latest News

Angelo Mathews to retire from Test cricket

Published

16 hours ago

2025/05/23

Priyan

Mathews will play just one more Test in his career.

Veteran Sri Lanka all-rounder Angelo Mathews will retire from Test cricket after the first Test against Bangladesh in Galle, starting June 17. Mathews, who turns 38 just before the match, will bring the curtains down on a decorated Test career that began at the very same venue in July 2009. While this marks the end of his red-ball journey, he has made himself available for white-ball selection “if and when my country needs me.”

“It is time for me to say goodbye to the most cherished format of the game, international Test Cricket! I have given everything to cricket and cricket has given me everything in return and made me the person I am today,” Mathews wrote in a social media post.

The Galle Test will be Mathews’ 119th in the format, 34 of which he played as captain. He is set to finish as Sri Lanka’s third-highest run-scorer in Tests, behind only Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene. Heading into his final match, he has amassed 8,167 runs at an average of 44.62, with 16 centuries and a highest score of 200*. He also chipped in with 33 wickets.

Among the highlights of his career was a prolific stretch between 2013 and 2015, when he averaged 74.60, 77.33 and 42.25 across the three years, scoring six hundreds and 12 fifties. That purple patch included a second-innings 160 in Sri Lanka’s memorable win at Headingley. Though he never quite recaptured those heights, Mathews averaged over 50 in both 2022 and 2023, notching up four more centuries. His most recent ton came against Afghanistan in 2024.

“I stand grateful to the game and thankful to the thousands of Sri Lanka cricket fans who have been there for me throughout my career during my highest of highs and lowest of lows,” Mathews wrote. “I believe this Test team is a talented side with many future and present greats playing the game. Now seems like the best time to make way for a younger player to take the mantle to shine for our nation.

“A chapter ends but the love for the game will always remain.”

[Cricbuzz]