The 53rd match of the IPL 2023 saw Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) hosting the Punjab Kings (PBKS) at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata on May 8. Shikhar Dhawan won the toss and chose to bat first.
The skipper led the way with 57 with 9 fours and one six, while contributions from Jitesh Sharma (21) and Shahrukh Khan (21*) took PBKS to 179/7 in 20 overs. For KKR, Varun Chakravarthy took 3/26.
Jason Roy with 38 gave KKR the best start possible, while captain Nitish Rana scored a brilliant 51 to keep the team in the chase, hitting 6 fours and 1 six in his knock. Rahul Chahar got both him and Venkatesh Iyer (11) out to put PBKS in front, but Andre Russell and Rinku Singh had other ideas.
Russell hammered 3 sixes in the 19th over bowled by Sam Curran, scoring 42 in 23 balls. But Rinku Singh (21* in 10) hit a four off the last ball to give KKR the win by 5 wickets.
Thanks to this win, KKR moved to the 5th spot in IPL 2023 points table with 10 points from 11 games.
The cricket fraternity was all praiseful for the KKR win and lauded the Russell-Rinku combo for finishing the game and taking their team past the finish line.
Here are the tweets:
