Dinesh Karthik saw his Kolkata Knight Riders side thrashed comprehensively by defending Indian Premier League (IPL) champions Chennai Super Kings on Tuesday but the skipper was impressed by the maturity shown by all-rounder Andre Russell.
Kolkata were restricted to just 108-9 in their 20 overs on a sluggish pitch at Chennai with Andre Russell battling with an unbeaten half-century. It was nowhere close to enough for the visitors in the end with Chennai chasing down the target comfortably with seven wickets to spare.
Russell had been in explosive form coming into the match with 207 runs scored off 77 balls in the previous matches but he was required to play a comfortably different type of knock against Chennai on a surface where spinners were extremely hard to get away.
Russell curbed his attacking instincts for much of his innings before bursting into life at the death overs to finish unbeaten on 50 (44).
After his side were handed only their second defeat of the campaign, Karthik said, “Definitely not enough runs.”
Andre Russell. Image: BCCI/SPORTZPICS.
“Tricky games, games like these. You never know what’s a good score, with the dew and stuff. You always end up thinking you should have got more.
“Four wickets in the powerplay was definitely a setback, but good to see (Andre) Russell showing maturity.”
His Chennai counterpart MS Dhoni criticised the Chepauk pitch once again despite his team’s victory with batsmen finding the going tough on a slow pitch. The CSK skipper had taken aim at the home pitch after the campaign opener as well when his side had bowled out Royal Challengers Bangalore for just 70 runs in a similar seven-wicket win for the hosts.
“It became like the first game. Again we were cribbing about the track but we won. We’ve lost Bravo and it looks like this pitch suits us now but I don’t think we want to play on wickets like these because it becomes too low-scoring for the batsmen,” the veteran skipper stated after the match.
With the seven-wicket win on Tuesday, Chennai have gone back on the top of the IPL 2019 table with five victories so far from their six games.
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