Nitish Rana, the captain of Kolkata Knight Riders, decided to bowl first after winning the toss. In the end, Lucknow Super Giants had a slow start, losing a wicket in the third over. Prerak Mankad assisted them in accelerating throughout the final two powerplay overs before succumbing to injury himself in the seventh. In the same over that Vaibhav Arora claimed the first wicket, he also managed to dismiss Marcus Stoinis for a significant amount of runs. After captain Krunal Pandya and Quinton de Kock also lost their positions, LSG quickly fell further behind. However, Nicholas Pooran came out strong, and his powerful smashes enabled him and Ayush Badoni to score nearly 50 runs together.
After 20 overs, LSG managed to reach 176/8, with Pooran scoring 58 runs in 30 balls. With 61 runs scored in the first 5.5 overs by Venkatesh Iyer and Jason Roy, KKR got off to a fast start. However, LSG has stopped the action by having its spinners dismiss Roy, Iyer, and skipper Rana. Rinku Singh kept KKR alive as Andre Russell struggled to have a significant effect. He ultimately scored an undefeated 67 from 33 balls, bringing KKR one run closer to the goal. KKR’s race in this year’s championship has therefore already been run, while LSG have pretty about qualified for the playoffs.
