IPL 2018, KKR vs RR: 3 thing you might have missed
A relatively calm chase by Kolkata Knight Riders thanks to brilliant captain's knock from Dinesh Karthik, breaking the winning streak of Rajasthan Royals in their own backyard. Batting first, Rajasthan Royals never got the momentum to their innings and scrambled to 160 in relatively good batting conditions.
Dinesh Karthik was really smart with his bowling changes, opening with spinners and bowling them in the powerplay and finishing the chase with the help of an excellent partnership with Nitish Rana, who had a good game with bat and ball and winning consecutive man of the match award. Sportkeeda takes a look at the three unnoticed things from the match which had a considerable impact on the end result.
#1 Short's struggle
One of the success stories of last year's Big Bash League mustering 572 runs opening for Hobart Hurricanes, D'Arcy Short failed to replicate his success in the subcontinental conditions.
Despite scoring a respectable 44 runs, he consumed a lot of dot balls at the start of the innings and struggled against the spinners. Dinesh Karthik's smart captaincy to open with spinners at both ends didn't help his cause.
However, he showed some promise at the latter part of his innings dispatching Mavi for huge six off a short ball and scoring few boundaries but still ended up playing run ball innings leaving power hitters with the likes of Ben Stokes and Jos Buttler, few deliveries to make a difference.