1 week Ago By The Hans India
Chennai: Sunil Narine put out a superb all-round show - picking 3-13 in his four overs and then smashing an entertaining 44, as a ruthless Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) thoroughly outplayed Chennai Super Kings (CSK) by eight wickets in a one-sided Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 clash at the MA Chidambaram Stadium here on Friday. On a black-soil pitch where there was help for spinners from the word go, Narine, Varun Chakaravarthy, and Moeen Ali, brought to counter left-handed batters, picked six wickets collectively as CSK’s batting never got going and ended up at a below-par 103/9, their lowest IPL total at Chepauk. In reply, Narine’s pyrotechnics at the top, as well as CSK bowlers pitching their deliveries too full, meant KKR chased down the paltry total with 59 balls to spare and jumped to third place in the points table.
It also meant that CSK, now a pale shadow of their dominating self, suffered their biggest margin of defeat in the IPL in terms of balls remaining, while losing five consecutive games for the first time in their history of being in the competition. CSK wanted to bat first after losing the toss, with MS Dhoni back as captain, but didn’t take full advantage of it as they could never break free from the discipline showed by KKR bowlers and succumbed to a combination of pressure and poor shot selection. It took Shivam Dube’s unbeaten 29-ball 31 to save CSK from being all out for their lowest total (79) in IPL’s history.
Devon Conway began by taking two boundaries off pacer Vaibhav Arora, before being dismissed for 12 when his attempt to reverse-sweep off Moeen resulted in him being trapped lbw in a wicket-maiden over. Brief scores: Chennai Super Kings 103/9 in 20 overs (Shivam Dube 31 not out, Vijay Shankar 29; Sunil Narine 3-13, Harshit Rana 2-16) lost to Kolkata Knight Riders 107/2 in 10.1 overs (Sunil Narine 44, Quinton de Kock 23; Noor Ahmad 1-8, Anshul Kamboj 1-19) by eight wickets.
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