NEWS
Follow UsThere has never been an Indian Premier League (IPL) like this ever. There has never been a T20 league like this. Cricket has never been reduced to a mere factorial of slogging, slogging, and more slogging. If you ever had in doubt, click on this scorecard between Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) and Punjab Kings (PBKS), where 262 was chased down with eight balls to spare on April 26, 2024 (Friday).
Once you’re a part of such a run-fest as a captain, even though you come out on the winning side, there’s a part of you that would be questioning the sanity of everything, as Sam Curran did after the game while likening the game to baseball.
“Very pleasing. Most importantly, the win, cricket has turned into baseball, isn't it? There are loads of different things; guys can hit balls for long periods of time, the coaches, training, the dew, dot balls become wide after reviews, and you get the extra ball. Stats are going out of the window,” Curran said in the post-match presentation.
It was not just this encounter, but overall, this has been the highest-scoring edition ever where batters have scored at a run rate of 9.6, with over 15,000 runs being scored in just 42 games.
As a matter of fact, once a team scored 261 runs in a normal season, that would have been it. There wouldn’t have been any question of the run chase, but after Prabhsimran Singh went ballistic in the powerplay against KKR, scoring 54 off 20 balls, Jonny Bairstow and Shashank Singh made the run chase into a cakewalk. Curran, who is standing in for an injured Shikhar Dhawan, was very pleased with the outcome.
“For us, it's all about the small moments. With the ball also we hung in there. I'm really pleased for Jonny; he's been on tour for a long time and was eager to score. Shashank, wow, he was promoted to No. 4, and he's been our find of the season. We've to enjoy the small wins, although this was a big win coming to Kolkata,” Curran added.
For KKR, Sunil Narine went gaga from the word go – as he has done all throughout the season – to set up the base alongside Phil Salt. The duo have been devastatingly impactful for their side and the major reason behind KKR’s streak of wins, which was broken on Friday night. Shreyas Iyer praised the Caribbean player while adding that the team would have to go back to the drawing board to figure out what went wrong for them.
“The way the batters batted was tremendous. So much you ask of them and they delivered. Both teams played tremendously. You have to go back to the drawing board and see where you went wrong. Not defending hurts but it's a great lesson for the players. Brilliant to see Narine go out and strike the ball. Lots to learn from him, he's the MVP of our team,” Iyer added.
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