Kolkata Knight Riders 157 for 3 (Salt 68, Shreyas 33*, Venkatesh 26*, Axar 2-25) beat Delhi Capitals 153 for 9 (Kuldeep 35*, Pant 27, Varun 3-16, Harshit 2-28, Arora 2-29) by seven wickets
Kolkata Knight Riders returned to winning ways and moved to second place on the IPL table with a confident, net-run-rate-boosting seven-wicket victory over Delhi Capitals.
After a succession of flat pitches, Eden served up one with a little bit of grip, and KKR's bowlers made full use of it after Capitals chose to bat first. Mitchell Starc and Vaibhav Arora took three wickets inside the powerplay, after which the spinners took over, with Varun Chakravarthy and Sunil Narine combining for figures of 8-0-40-4. Reduced to 111 for 8 at one stage, Capitals set KKR a 150-plus target thanks to an unlikely, unbeaten 26-ball 35 from Kuldeep Yadav.
With Kuldeep and Axar Patel in their attack, Capitals had the tools to create a bit of pressure on this pitch, but KKR were well on their way to victory before either spinner had bowled a ball. Phil Salt made his fourth fifty in five home games this season, dominating a powerplay in which KKR rushed to 79 for no loss.
Axar Patel removed both KKR openers when he came on, but it was too little, too late for Capitals, as Shreyas Iyer and Venkatesh Iyer put on an unbroken 57 off 43 balls to end the match with 21 balls remaining.
KKR now have 12 points from nine games, and a NRR of 1.096, the best of any team in the competition.
Kolkata Knight Riders returned to winning ways and moved to second place on the IPL table with a confident, net-run-rate-boosting seven-wicket victory over Delhi Capitals.
After a succession of flat pitches, Eden served up one with a little bit of grip, and KKR's bowlers made full use of it after Capitals chose to bat first. Mitchell Starc and Vaibhav Arora took three wickets inside the powerplay, after which the spinners took over, with Varun Chakravarthy and Sunil Narine combining for figures of 8-0-40-4. Reduced to 111 for 8 at one stage, Capitals set KKR a 150-plus target thanks to an unlikely, unbeaten 26-ball 35 from Kuldeep Yadav.
With Kuldeep and Axar Patel in their attack, Capitals had the tools to create a bit of pressure on this pitch, but KKR were well on their way to victory before either spinner had bowled a ball. Phil Salt made his fourth fifty in five home games this season, dominating a powerplay in which KKR rushed to 79 for no loss.
Axar Patel removed both KKR openers when he came on, but it was too little, too late for Capitals, as Shreyas Iyer and Venkatesh Iyer put on an unbroken 57 off 43 balls to end the match with 21 balls remaining.
KKR now have 12 points from nine games, and a NRR of 1.096, the best of any team in the competition.
