A six-pack show by Knights

PTI

Visakhapatnam, April 3

A dominant Kolkata Knight Riders produced a brilliant bowling effort after their batters’ sensational display of power-hitting as they thrashed a lacklustre Delhi Capitals by 106 runs and moved to the top of the IPL table here today.

Sunil Narine showcased his batting prowess with a blistering 85 while teenager Angkrish Raghuvanshi (54 off 27) impressed with a fluent fifty on his IPL batting debut as KKR posted an imposing 272/7, five runs short of the highest total in the tournament’s history.

DC never looked like they were in the game, be it with the ball or bat. They crumbled under the pressure of the mammoth total. Skipper Rishabh Pant (55) scored his second consecutive half-century while Tristan Stubbs (54), too, hit a fifty but it was in a lost cause as DC folded for 166 in 17.2 overs to suffer their third loss of the season.

Continuing his explosive run, Narine punished DC’s bowlers alike, sending the ball over the boundary rope seven times. He also hit seven fours in his 39-ball stay. DC were guilty of dropping him on 53 and Narine made his opponents suffer as he notched his highest-ever score in T20 cricket.

Raghuvanshi, who didn’t get to bat in his first IPL match against Royal Challengers Bengaluru, also fired on all cylinders, complementing Narine as the pair shared a 104-run stand off 48 balls.

KKR’s Andre Russell (41 off 19 balls) and Rinku Singh (26 off 8 balls) also went for the big hits.

With the ball, pacer Vaibhav Arora and KKR’s record buy Australian fast bowler Mitchel Starc deflated the chase in the powerplay itself.

Brief scores: KKR: 272/7 in 20 overs (Narine 85, Raghuvanshi 54, Russell 41; Nortje 3/59); DC: 166 all out in 17.2 overs (Pant 55, Stubbs 54; Vaibhav 3/27, Chakaravarthy 3/33).

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