(Cricket news) David Warner, the team’s captain, led the assault for DC with 57 runs (41b, 11×4), and the seasoned Manish Pandey added 21 runs off 23 balls. However, the night belonged to the home team’s bowlers, with Ishant Sharma, a seasoned bowler, taking 2/19 in 4 overs in his maiden encounter of the year. 

Anrich Nortje, a pacer from South Africa, got 2/20, and Axar Patel, a spinner, replied with 2/13 in three overs while also making an unbeaten 19. Similarly controlled, spinner Kuldeep Yadav took 2/15 in three overs. 

JioCinema TATA IPL specialist Aakash Chopra commented on KKR’s performance as follows,  “When you look back, the road always looks clear. But in the moment, you have to weigh your options and how you are going to use them. In my opinion, using three pacers initially was a bit too much. Because you were defending only 127 and DC had already scored 31 of those runs in three overs,” 

He also said, “They did call their spinners thereafter, but it was a rare off day for Sunil Narine. Because if Anukul Roy, Nitish Rana and Varun Chakaravarthy – nobody gave more than 5 runs an over — and then you have Narine who wasn’t able to get a wicket and went for 36 runs in four overs. Then you think that our senior most bowler let us down today. Sometimes, you look at the seniormost of the house and hope they will bail you out when you are in trouble, but that didn’t happen in Narine’s case today. Nevertheless, Kolkata fought hard. But the reality is you are still stuck at the place you began,” 

He said on David Warner,s batting that, “When you are chasing, the talk is never about the strike rate as you are playing according to the scoreboard. You approach the game with the mindset asking yourself what is needed. It’s not important in which over you win the match. But Warner batted well. The bowling was a bit ordinary in the beginning but what must have mattered to Warner was that he ended up on the winning side.” 

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