IN PICS: Narine, Lynn power KKR to easy win over RCB

Sport360 staff 19:56 07/05/2017

Sunil Narine [54 off 17 balls] and Chris Lynn [50 off 22 balls] produced one of the most memorable partnerships seen in the history of the Indian Premier League [IPL] as Kolkata Knight Riders [KKR] eased to a six-wicket win over Royal Challengers Bangalore [RCB] at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium on Sunday.

Chasing a target of 159, Kolkata pulled off a surprise by sending Narine and Lynn [who was returning from a shoulder injury] to open the innings ahead of captain Gautam Gambhir who has been in superb form this season.

The tactic worked like a treat as the West Indian-Australian duo raced off to 105-0 in just six overs, the highest ever score by any team at the end of the Powerplay in IPL history.

Narine brought up his fifty in just 15 balls – the joint-fastest half-century ever in the league.

Lynn was in no mood to ease the pain on the Royal Challengers either as he notched up his second half-century from just three innings this season.

On the back of the blitz at the top of the innings, Kolkata went on to post a comfortable win with Colin de Grandhomme also making an useful contribution, scoring 31 from 28 balls.

Pawan Negi staged a bit of a fight back for RCB, picking up two wickets, but it was far from enough.

Earlier, the hosts got off to a terrible start with the bat once again as they lost the wicket of Chris Gayle off the first delivery of the match.

Virat Kohli [5 off 9 balls] and AB de Villiers [10 off 8 balls] also failed to get going and the Royal Challengers found themselves in big trouble at 34-3 in the fifth over.

Mandeep Singh [52 off 43 balls] and Travis Head [75* off 47 balls] did a tremendous job of rebuilding the innings as they put together a 71-run partnership for the fourth wicket. Mandeep would go on to bring up his first half-century of the season before getting dismissed soon after a short delay due to rain.

Head, who has been in and out of the RCB line-up this season, nailed the big shots in the back-end of the innings as he took Umesh Yadav for 21 runs in the last over to take his team’s total to 158-6 in 20 overs.

Yadav, in fact, had been bowling brilliantly before that as he took three wickets which included the big scalps of Gayle and Kohli. Narine, who was fantastic with the bat later on, chipped in with two wickets for the visitors.

With this win, KKR have moved back up to the second spot on the table – with 16 points from 12 matches. Their net run-rate also got a huge boost as they finished the match in just 15.1 overs.

RCB, on the other hand, continue to linger at the bottom of the table with five points from 13 games.

BRIEF SCORES

Royal Challengers Bangalore 158-6, 20 overs [Head 75*, Mandeep 52, Yadav 3-36] lost to Kolkata Knight Riders 159-4, 15.1 overs [Narine 54, Lynn 50, Negi 2-21] by six wickets.

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