Kolkata Knight Riders captain Nitish Rana won the toss and chose to bowl first. Lucknow Super Giants ended up getting off to a sluggish start, losing a wicket in the third over. However, Prerak Mankad helped them accelerate in the last two overs of the powerplay before falling in the seventh himself. Vaibhav Arora took the wicket and he ended up getting the big wicket of Marcus Stoinis in the same over as well. LSG were soon in furthet trouble after captain Krunal Pandya and Quinton de Kock fell as well. However, Nicholas Pooran has come out swinging and his big hits helped set up a partnership of over 50 runs with Ayush Badoni. LSG eventually scored 176/8 in 20 overs with Pooran scoring 58 runs in 30 balls. KKR got off to a flier with Venkatesh Iyer and Jason Roy smashing 61 runs in the first 5.5 overs. However, LSG have put a break on the proceedings with their spinners taking the wickets of Roy, Iyer and captain Rana. Andre Russell could not make a big impact but Rinku Singh kept KKR alive. He ended up scoring an unbeaten 67 off 33 balls and brought KKR within one run of the target. LSG have thus just about qualified for the playoffs while KKR’s race has been run in this year’s tournament.
