Rajasthan Royals staged a brilliant come-from-behind victory against the Kolkata Knight Riders at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata and showed that the loss against Gujarat Titans was but a blip in their seemingly invincible juggernaut that could stage a comeback from essentially any position. KKR though, slumped to their second loss in their last three matches after having won their first three. Both teams retained the positions at first and second in the points table that they entered the clash with.
RR sent KKR in and had their openers struggling, but Angkrish Raghuvanshi (30 off 18) shook off the initial jitters to provide KKR with a platform; a platform which Sunil Narine (109 off 56) was very happy to capitalise on. While none of his partners did much of note, coupled with 21 extras, Narine’s batting performance was enough to push KKR over to 223/6.
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On resumption, Yashasvi Jaiswal’s very poor show continued and RR’s top order were struggling for runs. RR skipper Sanju Samson fell cheaply as well but Riyan Parag (34 off 14) tried to keep the momentum up, but once he fell, promotions to both Dhruv Jurel and R Ashwin did not work out as anticipated and Shimron Hetmyer had to go back first ball. The onus then fell on Jos Buttler (107* off 60) who had seen 6 of his partners fall with more than 100 runs remaining and less than eight overs to chase it. Rovman Powell (26 off 13) took some load off Buttler’s shoulders, but even that did not ascertain RR’s victory until the very last ball of the innings.
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Here are all the stats from the game:
3 – Sunil Narine became the third player to score a century for KKR. Previously, Brendon McCullum against RCB in 2008 and Venkatesh Iyer against MI in 2023 had scored centuries for KKR.
2 – Sunil Narine’s 109 is the second-highest individual score for KKR. Brendon McCullum’s 158* against RCB in 2008 is still the highest.
5 – Sunil Narine’s 109 is the fifth-highest individual score against RR in the IPL.
1 – Sunil Narine became the first player to score a century, take a wicket and take a catch in the same IPL match.
1 – Sunil Narine is currently the only player to have both a century and a fifer in the IPL.
3 – Sunil Narine is the third player after Rohit Sharma and Shane Watson to both have a century and a hattrick in the IPL.
3 – Sunil Narine became the third player to score a century and take two or more wickets in a match. Shane Watson and Chris Gayle, who did it on two occasions, are the other ones.
1,2 – Jos Buttler’s 107* is the joint-highest individual score in a successful chase for RR in the IPL alongside Ben Stokes who made the same score against MI in 2020. But, in all chases, it is only the joint second-highest behind Sanju Samson’s 119 against PBKS in 2021.
6 – Jos Buttler’s 107* is the joint sixth-highest individual score against KKR in the IPL.
2 – Jos Buttler registered his seventh IPL century becoming the second player to do so after Virat Kohli who scored nine, and breaking his tie with Chris Gayle’s six.
4 – Jos Buttler also scored his eighth hundred in T20s, which are the joint fourth most. Buttler is currently tied with four other players (David Warner, Aaron Finch, Michael Klinger and Rohit Sharma) while three players, Virat Kohli (9), Babar Azam (11) and Chris Gayle (22), have more centuries than him in the format.
1 – Jos Buttler became the first player to score 3 centuries while chasing in the IPL. The only other players with two are Virat Kohli and Ben Stokes.
2 – Jos Buttler became the second player to score multiple IPL centuries in a season more than once. Virat Kohli scored two in 2023 to go with his four in 2016, while Buttler had scored four in 2022 and has currently scored 2 in 2024.
5,2 – RR scored 79 runs in the last five overs of their chase. This is the fifth-highest for all chases, and second-highest for all successful chases behind the 86 that RR themselves scored against PBKS in 2020.
1 – The target of 224 that RR successfully chased is the joint highest target successfully chased in the IPL. The previous record was the 224 that RR themselves had chased against Punjab Kings in 2020.
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