The home team after being put into bat by Raina were reeling at 21 for three at the end of five overs.
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It was highest fifth-wicket stand in IPL history. Dhawal Kulkarni and Dwayne Smith struck once each.
While the batting side on the teams looks alike with Gautam Gambhir and Robin Uthappa, “The Hitler” for KKR, has together scored very well in IPL9, GL with their main scoring card consisting Brendon McCullum supported by Suresh Raina provides a tough competition.
Lions bolstered their spin attack, with a fit-again Pravin Tambe coming in for left-arm seamer Pradeep Sangwan, who leaked 28 runs in two overs against Sunrisers Hyderabad. He tried to ramp it over the slip, but the ball took his glove and high-flying Raina timed his jump to perfection to pouch that with his right hand (not his natural hand). KKR lost all the four wickets in powerplay with Praveen Kumar striking twice in one over. Praveen had a dream start and also bowled a maiden to Suryakumar Yadav for a fine spell of 3-1-7-2 to make things worse for KKR.
The trio’s failure has translated into the team’s losses as their Indian combination of Raina, Ravindra Jadeja and Dinesh Karthik is hardly making any match-winning impact. Pathan was the aggressive of the two to start with and completed his half-century off just 31 balls.
Knight Riders named an unchanged XI, which meant that they had three specialist spinners in Piyush Chawla, Brad Hogg and Shakib Al Hasan to add to Yusuf Pathan’s part-time offspin.
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However, Kolkata Knight Riders have a game in hand and Gambhir wants to use that advantage against the Gujarat Lions in their next encounter Sunday. Next up for Kolkata Knight Riders is their home fixture against Rising Pune Supergiants, while for the Lions, a journey to Bengaluru is on the cards for their away fixture against Royal Challengers Bangalore.
