Defending their score of 164/6, Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) were struggling for control and wickets when Kings XI Punjab (KXIP) openers KL Rahul (74) and Mayank Agarwal (56) had put their team in the ascendancy with the score reading 114/0 in the 15th over.
It is then, comeback pacer Prasidh Krishna delivered the impactful blows for his team, dismissing both the set batsmen through his outstanding spell of 3/29 as KKR later sneaked through to victory, restricting KXIP to 162/5 in Match 24 of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2020 this Saturday (October 10).
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After the win, Krishna, who was playing his first game of the tournament, told his skipper Dinesh Karthik that he wasn't feeling bogged down by the thought of bowling to two brilliant batsmen in Rahul and Agarwal. Instead, there was a sense of optimism as he has bowled a lot to his Karnataka mates.
"I think it has been wonderful, even the games I did not play, it has been really good. The staff and players have always kept me confident, I knew that whenever I will get a game, I can give my best," Krishna told Karthik in a video posted over Twitter via the official IPL handle.
"I think I slightly knew what was KL Rahul trying to do in the penultimate over, he was waiting for a bad ball and take me on. I just tried to keep it simple and it worked for us."
"I was confident because I have bowled a lot to Rahul and Mayank. They did hit me for four boundaries but then I thought I should just try to bowl the right balls and credit to them for hitting good shots," he added.
Apart from Krishna, veteran spinner Sunil Narine (2/28) was also a hero of the victory. Narine's incisive spell included the final over where he was bowling to the mighty dangerous power-hitter Glenn Maxwell and yet managed to defend the 14 runs that the opposition needed.
But KKR were given a fighting total in the first half by their captain, who struck form after a while and played shots all around the park during his free-flowing knock of 58 runs off 29 deliveries.
Speaking over his performance, Karthik said, "I think the game against KXIP was one of my better days, whatever I was trying to do, I was able to execute it. We had the chances of getting to 140-150 but I was happy that to take the team's score past the 160-mark."
"I thought 160 was a par score on this wicket, I think the way I batted, I was feeling good. The players from both sides would be proud of being a part of this sort of match," he added.
(Inputs from ANI)
