Kolkata Knight Riders are hosting the Rajasthan Royals in the 49th match of IPL 2018 at the Eden Gardens on Tuesday (May 15).
KKR skipper Dinesh Karthik won the toss and elected to bowl first. Rajasthan got off to a flier with Jos Buttler and Rahul Tripathi adding 63 runs for the opening wicket in just 4.5 overs. Buttler was in his zone and spared none of the KKR bowlers. He was particularly severe on the rookie pacer Shivam Mavi and smashed him for 28 runs in the third over.
However, soon after the dismissal of Tripathi, Royals lost the plot with wrist spinner Kuldeep Yadav doing most of the damage. Kuldeep first removed the RR skipper Ajinkya Rahane on 11 and then got rid of the swashbuckling Buttler on 39.
Rajasthan couldn’t quite recover following the dismissal of Buttler as Kuldeep claimed two more wickets to reduce them to 96/5. The 23-year-old leggie eventually finished with the figures of 4-0-20-4.
Andre Russel and Prasidh Krishna also picked up 2 wickets each while Shivam Mavi and Sunil Narine claimed wicket apiece to restrict Rajasthan Royals at 142-all out in 19 overs.
Twitterati were in awe to see the way Kuldeep Yadav changed the course of the game with his incredible spell.
Here are some of the top tweets hailing Kuldeep’s bowling heroics:
#RR, once again, proving to be a one-man army with the bat. Law of averages had to make an appearance at some stage....super comeback from #KKR Courtesy Kuldeep. Now to squeeze them dry. #IPL #KKRvRR
— Aakash Chopra (@cricketaakash) May 15, 2018
Momentum a precious word in T20 cricket, when you have it make sure you don’t lose it, #RR have done just that here...#KKRvsRR #IPL2018
— subramani badrinath (@s_badrinath) May 15, 2018
Big players turns up on big occasions can it be the game for @imkuldeep18 #SelectDugout @StarSportsIndia
— Daren Sammy (@darensammy88) May 15, 2018
Has @imkuldeep18 Yadav just spun @KKRiders into the finals? #KKRvRR #VIVOIPL2018
— Lisa Sthalekar (@sthalekar93) May 15, 2018
Remember it was 49 after 3 overs. This is a fantastic come back by #KKR ???????????? #KKRvRR
— Gaurav Kapur (@gauravkapur) May 15, 2018
4 wickets for Kuldeep Yadav. Tossing it up beautifully. So good to see. And, sadly, will count as a horror season with the bat for Stokes.
— Harsha Bhogle (@bhogleharsha) May 15, 2018