Match Report - IPL 2020 - Match 12 - RR v KKR - 30/9/2020 - Dubai

[Real McCoy]

Comprehensive win for Kolkata Knight Riders as Rajasthan Royals crumble in their chase

 

Steve Smith came into Dubai as RR captain with 2 wins in a row to start off their IPL season in Sharjah. He won the toss and elected to field whereas the history at Dubai suggested batting first maybe a wise option.

 

Archer started off with the new ball and bowled with blistering pace and troubled the KKR openers especially Narine. Narine was struggling to put bat to ball and finally scored a few hits to the fence. But he was bowled by Unadkat while he was trying to increase the scoring rate. Gill and Rana put on a good second wicket partnership and scored at a decent rate until Rana holed out to Tewatia in the deep. Gill quickly went as he closed the bat too quickly to an off pace delivery skying a return catch to Archer. Archer bowled with venom and also picked KKR captain Karthik with a jaffer of a delivery that moved just a bit away to catch the edge of Karthik to keeper Buttler for a simple caught behind. Russell hit a few sixes to threaten to take the game away from RR but was soon dismissed caught at third man. Morgan and Cummins put on a good partnership with Morgan hitting a couple of sixes. KKR managed 174 runs which looked like a good total on this big ground.

 

The runchase started with an uncertain Smith and a strange choice of shots. Cummins got him caught behind cheaply to Karthik on the leg side. Cummins bowled with the same intent as his counterpart Archer did earlier on and Karthik did a good job of giving Cummins to bowl 3 overs upfront covering half of the powerplay overs. This made the RR batsmen look for runs from the other bowlers and this resulted in wickets at regular intervals. Tom Curran scored a 50 but it was a little too late to change the outcome. RR never got going and finished with a score of 137.

 

This was not RR’s day and Smith and his team need to account for different conditions and make the necessary adjustments like dew conditions, ground size, and lighting issues. Meanwhile, Karthik the KKR captain would be mightily pleased with this big victory as his team is 2-1 and also managed to equalize their poor net run rate from their big loss in the first match.

 

 

@Trichromatic@Cricketics

Edited September 30, 2020 by Real McCoy

[Sonix768]

I think KKR would have even gotten a better NRR had they gone for the kill and win by about 60-70 runs, given that RR was 88-8. They could have used Cummins and Nagakoti to finish the tail off. Hope he wasnt worried about over rate and went fully for spinners because he wanted to he wanted to give spinners a go in the death overs and to preserve fast bowlers. If anything, at least he could let go off Narine and gove Banton a fair chance at the top

 

 

[coffee_rules]

It is a Jaffa that is an unplayable delivery, the ones that all dismissals of Dravid and Pujara are caused by.  Not Jaffer which means a gaffe in UK slang

Edited September 30, 2020 by coffee_rules

[Real McCoy]

8 hours ago, coffee_rules said:

It is a Jaffa that is an unplayable delivery, the ones that all dismissals of Dravid and Pujara are caused by.  Not Jaffer which means a gaffe in UK slang

 

I googled both terms and didn't find a concrete answer. I guess both terms are valid as nobody knows the origins of the slang term. Here's one from the Australian Cricketers Association

https://auscricket.com.au/news/cricket-slang-glossary/

Quote

Jaffer - commonly known as a Beauty or a Peach in Australia, the Jaffer is simply one of those balls that even the batsman is in awe of. There's a fair share of Jaffers dished-up in world cricket, but here's one that caught our eye .

Nobody in UK/Aus pronounces the er at the end of the word like Americans do. Hence it may be read as jaffa. Or Jaffa can be related to a particular fruit similar to a peach. I guess both words can be used to describe an unplayable ball.