Amid Andre Russell muscling the ball and Riyan Parag’s carnage, Varun Chakravarthy’s 2/32 from four overs was probably a bit facile, which slipped under the radar. From Kolkata Knight Riders’ point of view, though, it was important.
In the last couple of home matches, the team’s bowling royalty — Varun and Sunil Narine — had just one wicket between them. From that perspective, Varun’s double-wicket over, where he accounted for Dhruv Jurel and Wanindu Hasaranga, contributed to KKR’s win.
It was another high-scoring game at Eden Gardens and a question on the pitch came along the expected lines: If the team got the perfect surface for this match? “Perfect wicket; today was again a close match, over 200 runs. You can’t complain,” Varun said at the post-match press conference.
“Pitch definitely got better in the second innings. Just one or two balls turned for me. Other than that, not much help I would say,” he added. Then came the ‘spin-punch’: “I think even if you play on a rank turner at Eden, the score is going to be 200.”
KKR will also take a lot of heart from Russell’s return to form, when every game is a virtual knockout for them. “Age is just a number,” the 37-year-old Jamaican told the host broadcaster after scoring 57 not out off 25 balls. Varun confirmed that Russell is not done yet. Far from it.
“As far as I have spoken to him (Russell) and interacted with him, he still wants to play another two-three cycles of IPL, which is easily six more years. He looks fit and fine. It doesn’t matter how old you are,” said the KKR spinner.
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Varun also tipped his hat to Riyan’s innings that almost took the game away from the hosts. “This must have been one of the best knocks I have ever seen.”
‘Releasing Buttler not a mistake’
Meanwhile, it was another narrow defeat for the Royals, fourth time in the season they failed to get over the line in a close contest. With six points from 12 games, they are out of the playoff race, but it could have been entirely different with those eight points that were there for the taking.
With every defeat, it felt like Royals bungled big-time by letting go of Jos Buttler — a great white-ball player who can finish games off. He is doing that for Gujarat Titans at the moment, while Shimron Hetmyer, retained for Rs 11 crore, has been dropping stinkers. Vikram Rathour, the team’s batting coach, begged to differ.
“I won’t say it was a mistake,” said Rathour at the post-match presser. “Obviously, you could have retained only six, and the management is pretty happy with the six that we have retained.”
The former India batting coach backed Hetmyer. “Hatie was supposed to be that finisher,” he said. “Unfortunately, he has had that kind of a season, which will happen once in a while. He is a superb player and has done that in the past. This year, he hasn’t been able to finish a game.”
A tally of 216 runs from 11 innings at an average of 21.60 makes Hetmyer one of the flops of the season.
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