Indian Premier League T20 Cricket - Qualifier 2 - KKR Hold Nerve To Move To The Finals!!!!

Hello Sports Lovers,

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When Kolkata Knight Riders were playing their First match in the UAE leg, they were coming off with 2 wins from 7 games they played and that means 5 losses in Indian leg!!!

Most of the people KKR fans had given up on their favorite team as there was a daunting task of winning atleast 5 games from the remaining 7 to make it to 14 and have chance of qualifying for playoffs.

They not only did that and did it in great style!!!!

But more than that, they won against RCB in Eliminator and won again today against DC to move into the final of IPL 2021!!!!

Let's go thru KKR's victory in Second qualifier over the league table toppers DC.

KKR won all important toss and Eoin Morgan, their captain asked Delhi Capitals to bat First as they did against RCB where they had to bat Second and that was the right decision for them.

Delhi Capitals started off well with Prithvi Shaw starting with his usual style of banging from ball One and at the other end, Shikhar Dhawan started bit slowly, may be the plan was that, One of the openers to bat deep and other to keep attacking.

Their plan worked well as they raced to 50 in Eighth over, a bit slow start considering their batting in UAE.

By that time, they had already lost Prithvi Shaw who made 18 from 12 balls and Marcus Stoinis, the new batter wasn't at his best to cope up with slow Sharjah pitch as he made 18 from 23 balls before being bowled by young Indian pacer Shivam Mavi.

That brought the DC's former captain Shreyas Iyer to the crease.

At the other end, Dhawan was also going slowly and he and Iyer started trying to accelerate the score and Dhawan holed out to Shakib Al Hassan to mystery spinner Varun Chakravarthy's delivery thus bringing his slower batting to an end and by that time, he had made 36 from 39 balls.

It was Shreyas Iyer and Shimron Hetmyer who had to innovate few shots to get DC a respectable total of 135 runs as DC's captain Rishabh Pant failed to score big.

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For KKR, it was once again Varun Chakravarthy who was the pick of the bowlers with 2 for 26 from his 4 overs.

Infact, all the KKR bowlers did well in this match with giving away 7 or lesser runs per over.

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As we often say, low scores are always trickier to chase.

But KKR had other plans and their much talented opening pair of Shubman Gill and Venkatesh Iyer once again started off well for them scoring almost a century partnership for them before Iyer became the First to get out in Thirteenth over.

Iyer had made 55 from 41 balls in his usual style of power hitting with 3 Sixes and 4 Fours.

At the other end, although Gill was going at a run a ball, he was ensuring KKR doesn't lose wickets.

KKR were cruising inspite of Iyer's wicket in Twelfth over, but, then came a sudden collapse for them which even none of the KKR's fan and players were expecting.

They were 123 in Sixteenth over needing another 14 runs from 24 odd balls and the parade to the pavilion started!!!

First, it was Nitish Rana who went back for 13 from 12 balls and then, Shubman Gill went back for 46 from as many balls.

Rahul Tripathi was joined by Dinesh Karthikwhen 11 more runs needed and KKR started losing wickets in a heap as Dinesh Karthik, Eoin Morgan, Shakib Al Hassan and last match's hero Sunil Narine all went back without opening their account and there were nervy faces all around KKR camp!!!

When 6 runs needed off the last 2 balls with 2 wickets from previous deliveries from Ashwin, Rahul Tripathi thumped a Six over bowler's head to not only avoid a hatrick for Ashwin, but also won the match with that Six for KKR!!!

That was really a nice comeback by the ever consistent DC bowling unit with Anrich Nortje, Kagiso Rabada, Avesh Khan, Ravichandran Ashwin and Axar Patel being match winners for them and proved again why they are the best bowling unit.

They almost won the match for their side by taking 6 wickets for 7 runs and had that penultimate ball not a Six, it would have been a different story.

But, Tripathi, like DC, has been a consistent player for KKR this season scoring in almost all the matches he played.

Spare a thought for Delhi Capitals who were the more consistent side than any other teams in this IPL and they have to lose 2 matches even after finishing as table toppers and couldn't capitalize with the 2 opportunities they had to reach the final.

Whatever it may be, DC still the more consistent side and hopefully, they will comeback more stronger next year with mega auction in line.

So, it will be a CSK vs KKR final and there is no chance of a new IPL winner as both of these 2 have already won IPL titles on multiple occasions!!!

KKR has got the momentum with them, but it will be captain cool infront of them.

With MS Dhoni having got few runs in the last match, his fans will expect him to score big in the final to assure himself that he plays as a player in next year's IPL.

It will be KKR's bowling against CSK's batting in the final with Ruturaj Gaikwad, Faf Du Plessis and co with their consistent batting against KKR's bowling from Narine, Varun, Shakib along with Ferguson to carry out their team's hopes on their shoulders.

Let's hope KKR continues good show as momentum will be with them more than with CSK.

That's all from me guys.

Wishing you all a happy Thursday :)

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