Ajinkya Rahane‘s Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) underwent their second major batting failure this season as the Punjab Kings defended the lowest score in IPL history with the visitors failing to chase down 112 in Mullanpur on Tuesday, April 15. At 62/2 in the eighth over with just 50 runs required and eight wickets in the kitty, it seemed like a cakewalk for the Knight Riders until it wasn’t as Yuzvendra Chahal turned up after a few insipid games for the Punjab Kings, registering his first four-wicket haul for the franchise as he ran through the KKR middle order.
Rahane was honest in his assessment of the game saying that they didn’t bat well and took the onus on himself as his wicket triggered the collapse, even though the impact was outside and had he taken the review, he would have survived and probably some luck was on the hosts’ side as well.
“Kay faltu batting keli na aamhi (We batted really poorly, didn’t we?)” Rahane quipped to Shreyas Iyer in Marathi since both belong to and play for Mumbai in domestic cricket as they led the customary handshakes for their respective teams. Rahane mentioned that the bowlers did well restricting the in-form batting line-up for the Kings to just 111 and it should have been chased down by them but it wasn’t to be.
“I’ll take the blame. As the captain of the team, I played the wrong shot even though it [the ball] was missing [the stumps]. But again, it started from there,” Rahane said at the post-match presentation.
“We batted really badly as a batting unit, and we take full responsibility as a batting unit. I thought bowlers did really well on the surface, restricting a strong Punjab batting line-up to 111.”
The Knight Riders have had a stop-start tournament that has seen them win one and lose one game, now for seven matches in a row. With four losses and three wins in the tournament so far, especially after a defeat like that, KKR will need to pick themselves up in enormous proportions because now winning five out of the remaining seven games will take some getting from the defending champions as it could easily go pear-shaped from here onwards.
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