Cricket Highlights, 18 May: IPL 2022 – Match 66 (KKR vs LSG)

KKR vs LSG Match Highlights

Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) has got a thrilling win over Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) by 2 runs in the 66th match of IPL 2022 at the DY Patil Stadium in Navi Mumbai on Wednesday courtesy of Quinton de Kock’s career-best innings in T20 format. LSG has also confirmed the playoffs as the second team of the tournament by winning this match.

After winning the toss, LSG captain KL Rahul decided to bat and sent KKR to bowl first. After coming down to bat, the new team of IPL(LSG) collected a big score of 210 runs without losing any wicket in the allotted 20 overs.

Both openers Quinton de Kock and KL Rahul played from start to end of the innings. De Cock was the most devastating. He played a tornado innings of 140 runs off just 70 balls. Along with his 200 strike rate. De Kock hit a total of 20 boundaries. Where there were 10 fours and 10 sixes.

Another LSG opener Rahul took 68 runs off 51 balls. He hit 3 boundaries and 4 sixes. For KKR, their Kiwi pacer Tim Southee conceded the maximum 57 runs in 4 overs. Andre Russell gave 45 runs in 3 overs.

Coming down to chase the huge target of 211 runs, KKR lost the wickets of two openers Venkatesh Iyer and Abhijeet Tomar quickly. Venkatesh could not make any run. Abhijeet scored only 4 runs. Then KKR turned around thanks to the partnership of Nitish Rana and captain Shreyas Iyer. Nitish was dismissed for 42 off 22 balls. He hit 9 boundaries.

Captain Shreyas scored 50 off 29 balls with 4 fours and 3 sixes. Sam Billings made 36 off 24 balls. Thanks to their great innings, the game went on till the last over. 21 runs were needed to win in the last over. Rinku Singh and Sunil Narine were on the wicket then. All-rounder Marcus Stoinis came to bowl for LSG on that occasion.

Rinku smashed a boundary in the first ball and two sixes in the next two balls. He brought up 16 runs with the first 3 balls. Rinku took 2 runs in the fourth ball. He made 18 runs from 4 balls. KKR needed only 3 runs from the last 2 balls. But luckily their luck was something different.

Rinku Singh lost his wicket in the fifth ball. Rinku played a lofted shot above the cover in the ball of Stoinis. Lewis was standing within 30 yards of the boundary. He jumped to his left and grabbed a one-handed catch so unbelievably that his teammates got bewildered to see that. If the catch was not caught, it could have been a boundary. But he sent the destroyer Rinku back to the dressing room.

Umesh Yadav came down to bat on the last ball. Stoinis bowled a yorker. Yadav could not stop the ball. He got bowled then. In other words, after losing two wickets in a row in the last two balls, KKR’s innings came to a halt at 208 after losing 8 wickets from just 2 runs away from the target.

Rinku Singh played a devastating innings of 40 off 15 balls with 2 fours and 4 sixes. Sunil Narine remained unbeaten playing a nice cameo of 21 from 7 balls. Mohsin Khan and Marcus Stoinis took the maximum number of 3 wickets each. Besides, Krishnappa Gowtham and Ravi Bishnoi took 1 wicket each. As a result, after losing the match with the last two balls, the last year’s finalist KKR are out of this year’s IPL group stage.

Lucknow Super Giants are now in second place in the points table obtaining 18 points playing 14 matches, where they have 9 wins and 5 losses. On the other hand, Kolkata Knight Riders with 6 wins and 8 defeats in 14 matches, got 12 points and are in the 6th position of the standings. They are now out of the competition for this time.

KKR vs LSG Scoreboard

Lucknow Super Giants – 210/0 (20.0)

Kolkata Knight Riders – 208/8 (20.0)

Result – Lucknow Super Giants won by 2 runs

Player of the match – Quinton de Kock

KKR vs LSG Reward of the Match