UNITED ARAB EMIRATES: Kolkata Knight Riders defeats Delhi Capitals by 3 wickets in Qualifier-2 of IPL 2021. By defeating Delhi Capitals, Kolkata Knight Riders advance to the IPL finals where they will play against the Chennai Super Kings. Kolkata has a 100% win record in an IPL final whereas Chennai’s win percentage is 37.5 in an IPL final.
In this match after winning the toss, Kolkata Knight Riders decided to bowl first. Delhi Capitals were off to a good start as their openers Prithvi Shaw and Shikhar Dhawan were looking good and Prithvi Shaw was scoring some quick runs too. But just when things were looking good, Prithvi Shaw got LBW (Leg Before Wicket) off a delivery bowled by Varun Chakaravarthy. Prithvi Shaw scored 18 off 12 deliveries which included 2 fours and 1 six.
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After the fall of Shaw, Marcus Stoinis joined Shikhar Dhawan in the middle. Shikhar Dhawan and Marcus Stoinis were failing to score runs at a good rate. When both Shikhar Dhawan (36) and Marcus Stoinis (18) got out, the Delhi Capitals score was 83/3 after 14.1 overs.
After that Shreyash Iyer and Shimron Hetmyer scored some quick runs to help Delhi Capitals reach a total of 135/5 after the completion of 20 overs. For Kolkata Knight Riders, Varun Chakaravarthy picked up 2 wickets while Lockie Ferguson and Shivam Mavi took 1 wicket each.
Kolkata Knight Riders were off to a blazing start as their openers, Shubhman Gill and Venkatesh Iyer stitched up a 96 runs partnership in just 12.2 overs to make the chase easy for the Kolkata Knight Riders. After the fall of Venkatesh Iyer, who scored 55 runs off 41 deliveries which included 4 fours and 3 sixes, Nitish Rana came out to bat.
Nitish Rana scored 13 runs off 12 deliveries which included 1 six. After Rana got out, Kolkata Knight Riders were 123/2 after 16 overs. Now Kolkata needed just 13 runs off 24 deliveries but from here Delhi Capitals wreck havoc among Kolkata’s Batting lineup.
Four Kolkata Knight Riders batsmen got out on a duck. Kolkata needed 7 runs from the last over. Ravichandran Ashwin took 2 wickets in the last over and Kolkata needed 6 runs off 2 deliveries. Rahul Tripathi kept his cool and he hit a six off the 5th delivery of the last over and Tripathi helped Kolkata to reach their 3rd IPL final.
For Delhi Capitals, Anrich Nortje, Ravichandran Ashwin, and Kagiso Rabada took 2 wickets while Avesh Khan took 1 wicket.
