Rajasthan Royals produced a turnaround to edge past Kolkata Knight Riders by seven runs in an IPL 2022 game at the Brabourne Stadium on Monday night.
Kolkata Knight Riders needed 40 runs off the final four overs against Rajasthan Royals with a set batter Shreyas Iyer batting on 85. That is when Yuzvendra Chahal showed his magic. He claimed four wickets in one over including a hat-trick and turned the game in RR's favour conceding just two runs in the over.
Chahal’s spell eventually turned out to be the difference between the sides as KKR got bundled out for 210 chasing 218.
“I had to take wickets in this match to change the result,” said Man of the Match Yuzvendra Chahal after RR’s win over KKR. It was also Chahal's maiden hat-trick in his career.
“I worked on my bowling. I spoke to the coaches and the skipper. I was thinking of a googly but then I didn't want to take a chance and bowled leg-spin only. Would have been happy with a dot ball as well on my hat-trick ball. My googly was coming out well and sent it down to Venkatesh Iyer as he would have played my leg-break well,” he added.
Chahal also became the 21st player to take an IPL hat-trick and fifth by Rajasthan Royals bowler after Ajit Chandila, Pravin Tambe, Shane Watson and Shreyas Gopal.
It was Jos Buttler’s 103 off 61 that had powered RR to 217/5 – the highest total of IPL 2022 so far. Sanju Samson’s 38 off 19 had also helped the team’s cause. In return, KKR lost Sunil Narine on a run-out on the very first ball of the innings.
But then, Shreyas Iyer (85 off 51) and Aaron Finch (58 off 28) stitched 107 runs for the second wicket to put KKR in a dominating position. They were well in the game till the end of the 16th over but Chahal’s spell pushed them on the back foot and eventually won the game for RR.
