IPL 2020, KKR vs RR: 3 players who flopped | 1 November

Steve Smith walked off knowing the price of his wicket for KKR. [PC: iplt20.com]

The Rajasthan Royals (RR) and the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) knew what was needed to stay alive. A big victory would guarantee qualification, while at least a win would keep them in the hunt but dependent on other results.

RR made the cardinal error of going aggressively for a big victory without first ensuring a win, and paid a hefty price by ending their season at the ignominious bottom position on the IPL 2020 points table.

In what was something a colour negative of KKR's batting performance against DC, Narine and Rana were dismissed for nothing, while it was Gill and Tripathi who put up contributions with the bat. One of KKR's most consistent performers this season, Eoin Morgan led the way with 68 runs off just 35 balls.

Andre Russell, who was included in hopes of extracting some firepower from him this season, partially delivered with a quick cameo of 25 off 11. Pat Cummins hit the ball around for 15 off 11 in what was only the start of his stellar show for KKR.

RR started with 19 runs from just the first five balls of Pat Cummins' opening over, before a casual loft from Robin Uthappa found the fielder. Cummins bowled with a point to prove, dismissing Stokes and Riyan Parag caught-behind while getting his former Australian skipper Steve Smith to chop onto his stumps.

Shivam Mavi, Kamlesh Nagarkoti and CV Varun also chipped in with wickets in a complete bowling performance to leave RR 9 down and behind by 60 runs at the end.

In a dismal end to RR's campaign, and a proud one to KKR's that gives them hope and momentum for the playoffs, a few players missed a huge chance to contribute to their team one final time, possibly. Here are the top 3 such players.

#3 Steve Smith (RR)

Steve Smith was dismissed by his Australian teammate Cummins in a fiery opening spell. [PC: iplt20.com]

A strong start to RR's campaign with two wins on the trot petered out into a tame finish with them winning just 4 of the next 12 games. One of the key differences for them was the tapering form of Steve Smith. He started out with two aggressive innings at the top of the RR batting order, with the middle-order shift not quite yielding the desired returns.

Smith has often been dismissed this IPL getting into awkward positions while playing pace. Here was another such occasion, as he pushed at a back-of-a-length ball from Pat Cummins that took an inside edge and disturbed his stumps to send him on his way for 4 off 4. Though he can count himself slightly unlucky, it brought a disappointing end to a season of promise for RR and himself.

#2 Sunil Narine (KKR)

Narine had no major contributions in a commanding win for KKR. [PC: iplt20.com]

Sunil Narine, one of KKR's strongest and most consistent performers since he joined the team in 2012, has had one of his leanest seasons this year.

Dropped from the top order after not doing much of note, he did chip in with some runs via his middle order cameos, with nearly half his runs this season coming in one go against DC. With the ball, Narine has often been played out by teams, but even otherwise, a decline in his wicket-taking threat resulted in just 5 wickets for the season.

Narine got opportunities with both ball and bat against RR. With bat in hand, his middle-order stint ended as soon as it started, as he trudged back after facing just two balls. He was also comfortably KKR's least impressive bowler on the night, as he took some stick in his four overs while all others picked up wickets and kept RR's runs down to an extent.

#1 Dinesh Karthik (KKR)

Dinesh Karthik fell first ball to leg-spin, unable to improve his poor numbers this season. [PC: iplt20.com]

Captaincy, no captaincy - it hasn't made too much of a difference for Dinesh Karthik this season.

KKR's fortunes as a team didn't turn drastically in either direction, as they retained to the fourth spot they possessed at the time of the handover. Karthik's wretched form didn't change either, with the stark contrast between his innings as finisher and as a middle-overs batsman being strictly maintained.

Karthik will have to take a hard look at his technique against leg-spin in particular, since he's been dismissed in all sorts of ways against such bowling. In this game, he played for turn off his first ball to be deceived by a straighter one, handing a ballooning catch to short mid-wicket.

It wasn't all doom and gloom though, as Karthik took a sensational catch behind the stumps to dismiss Stokes in a total of four grabs on the night.