A total of 28 matches has been played between Kolkata Knight Riders and Punjab Kings. Punjab Kings got just nine victories and Kolkata Knight Riders won 19 matches. In today’s match, Punjab kings scored 123 runs in 20 overs with nine wickets down. Mayank Agarwal was the top runs scorer with 31. Chris Jordan added 30 runs to his team’s scorecard. Prasidh Krishna took three wickets. In reply, the Kolkata Knight Riders team chased down the target in 16.4 overs with the loss of five wickets. Rahul Tripathi scored 40 runs, The captain of the team Eoin Morgan scored 47 runs not out.
Kolkata Knight Riders vs Punjab Kings Highlights today Monday, 26-04-2021 – 21st Match (N), Indian Premier League season 14th from Narendra Modi Stadium, Motera, Ahmedabad.
Morgan won the toss and chose to bowl first.
Morgan says: they’ve asked themselves as well why they’re losing. They do have the talent and depth in the squad, he says. “We have the opportunity to turn that around. Little bit of momentum and confidence can make the difference.”
Rahul: It’s a new ground. I hope the country can fight back from this situation, but we have to do what we have to do. The last win gave us a lot of confidence and that me and Chris could stay till the end. Gayle keeps things light in the dressing room.
IPL 2021 Points Table
Kolkata Knight Riders team: 1 S Gill, 2 N Rana, 3 R Tripathi, 4 E Morgan (capt), 5 S Narine, 6 D Karthik (wk), 7 A Russell, 8 P Cummins, 9 S Mavi, 10 V Chakaravarthy, 11 P Krishna.
Punjab Kings team: 1 KL Rahul (capt & wk), 2 M Agarwal, 3 C Gayle, 4 N Pooran, 5 D Hooda, 6 Shahrukh Khan, 7 M Henriques, 8 R Bishnoi, 9 M Shami, 10 C Jordan, 11 A Singh.
Post match presentation
KL Rahul: “I really don’t know what to say, it was a poor performance from us. We should have adapted better on a new pitch, we could have applied a lot more with the bat and get that extra 20-30 runs. The wicket was a bit low and slow, but 120-130 was not enough. A few soft dismissals are that’s costing us the game. The pitch was a bit two-paced and stayed up and down as well. It was hard in the first six overs to understand the good shots to play on this pitch.
It was expected that the pitch was difficult to assess at a new venue when you’re batting first, but we should have assessed and adapted quickly but we couldn’t do that. We have a few more games here and we hope to learn from our mistakes. That was a stunning catch (from Bishnoi), we’ve been a good fielding side. We have Jonty Rhodes who pushes the boys at every training session. He’s a tough taskmaster and he puts everyone to the test. He has great energy off the field and that rubs off on the players.”
Rahul Tripathi: “It felt nice to win after losing three in a row. Our bowling unit did a fabulous job to restrict them to 122. We lost early wickets but we knew if we applied ourselves we could chase it down. It was coming on but the oddball was keeping low but it was coming on nicely. Yes, I thought I was run out (laughs) and I thought I was late to dive but fortunately, I made it. I think I was set (when I got out) and I wanted to take a chance against an offspinner but it was a half-hearted chance. A little rash shot but I would have liked to carry on.”
Eoin Morgan is also the Player of the Match:
Nice to lead the team. We’ve worked incredibly hard, but didn’t perform as well as we would have liked initially. Today, our performance was really really impressive. Especially from our bowlers and the way we started and kept the pressure throughout. On a wicket like that, in the 12th or 13th over the ball continued to slide on and got better and better.
Mavi was only in his second game this season, and bowling four together is something we don’t do often. His match-up against Gayle was favorable. He had started well last game so huge credit to him. The advantage we have over most spinners is we have variation spinners with drift and turn, and today they were exceptional. Still, a lot of time to go in the tournament (on getting off the bottom of the table), we can’t take it for granted.
(On the pandemic) It’s challenging and things have to be managed for the players and staff, and we know the horrific nature of what’s happening outside the bubble. We try and lend our support and we’ve seen how devastating it is not only in India but around the world. If you’re going out stay safe, wear a mask, maintain social distance. We’ve seen huge amounts of tough times, even at home. On behalf of KKR, we wish everyone well. We can stick together, we can beat this thing.
Match Timings: 14:00 GMT | 19:30 Local
Umpires – Paul Reiffel, Yeshwant Barde
TV Umpires – Sundaram Ravi
Match Referee – Prakash Bhatt
Reserve Umpire – Anil Dandekar
Match number – IPL Season 14th 21st Match
