IPL 2017: RPS vs KKR, 5 things that went wrong for Rising Pune Supergiant
The Kolkata Knight Riders returned to the top of the table with a seven-wicket win over Rising Pune Supergiant at Pune. Both KKR and RPS had dropped their respective Man of the Match from their previous game in Nathan Coulter-Nile and Ben Stokes and it was the Knight Riders who won the toss and elected to field first.
Steve Smith’s 37-ball 51 assisted by Ajinkya Rahane’s 41-ball 46, Rahul Tripathi’s 23-ball 38 and cameos of 23 and 16 from MS Dhoni and Dan Christian respectively, took RPS to a challenging total of 182/5 in their 20 overs.
In reply, Sunil Narine began well for KKR but was dismissed for 16 following which Robin Uthappa joined skipper Gautam Gambhir at the crease. The duo began to build a solid partnership with Uthappa being the aggressor and Gambhir playing second fiddle.
The duo formed a partnership of 158 from 85 deliveries to turn the match in KKR’s favour. Both Uthappa and Gambhir were dismissed within five balls of each other after scoring 87 and 62 respectively but by then, the match was already out of RPS’ reach.
Extra Cover: IPL 2017: RPS vs KKR, Jaydev Unadkat dropping in-form Robin Uthappa is our SK Turning Point of the match
A boundary from debutant Darren Bravo took KKR past the finish line in 18.1 overs. Uthappa was adjudged the Man of the Match for his 47-ball knock of 87 which comprised seven fours and six sixes.
Here are five things that went wrong for the Rising Pune Supergiant against the Knight Riders.
#5 Rahane’s slow innings
Ajinkya Rahane was the second-highest scorer for RPS in the match with 46 but his 41-ball innings lacked bite as he mainly defended his wicket without showing much aggressive intent. Even during the powerplay, 35 of RPS’ total of 57 was scored by Rahul Tripathi as Rahane only scored 19 from 18 deliveries.
Even though Rahane is not the most aggressive batsman, he has played some pretty quick innings on the batting-friendly wicket of Pune and keeping in mind the power in KKR’s batting lineup, he needed to play a similar innings. Had Rahane batted more aggressively or been dismissed early, then RPS may have reached a much higher total.