Kolkata Knight Riders captain Nitish Rana said on Thursday, April 20 that he would take responsibility for the team’s defeat to Delhi Capitals in a tense, low-scoring thriller. After a bright start, Kolkata Knight Riders slipped to their 3rd successive defeat of the IPL 2023 season.
Kolkata Knight Riders are reeling at the 8th spot in the 10-team IPL 2023 points table as things don’t seem to be going their way.
After being sent into bat, Kolkata were reduced to 32 for 3 in the powerplay as they lost big guns Venkatesh Iyer (0) and captain Rana (4) after debutant Litton Das perished.
Nitish Rana threw his wicket away in the final over of the powerplay when he tried to hit comeback man Ishant Sharma over the mid-on fielder. For Venkatesh, it was a disappointing outing as he got out for a 2-ball duck, days after scoring his maiden IPL century.
Mandeep Singh managed 12 but star finisher Rinku Singh was out for 6 while Sunil Narine threw his wicket away to Ishant for 4.
Thanks to Andre Russell’s 3 sixes in the final over in his 31-ball 38, Kolkata managed to post a total in excess of 120.
“I think we were 15-20 runs on this difficult pitch. I take the responsibility for this, I should have stood there,” Nitish Rana said.
However, Rana lauded his bowling attack for taking the game until the final over on a slow pitch at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in Delhi.
David Warner hit a fifty and Delhi were cruising at 93 for 3 in the 14th over but part-timers Anukul Roy (2 of 19) and the captain himself pulled things back with quick wickets.
Varun Chakaravarthy was brilliant, as usual, picking up 2 wickets for just 16 runs.
“Credit to the bowlers though, I think the upcoming games will be good for us. We were just trying to delay, but they played really well in the powerplay. That’s where they won the game. We need to play well as a team. We need to bowl like the way we did today, if we manage to sort these things out, we can fight better,” Rana added.
KKR will be looking to end their losing streak when they take on Chennai Super Kings at home on April 23.
