Picture Credit: BCCI/IPL
On Sunday, May 4, in the match 53rd of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025, Kolkata Knight Riders defeated Rajasthan Royals by one-run at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata, to keep their hopes alive of making the playoffs. After posting a commanding total of 206/4 on the board with a power-hitting masterclass from Andre Russell, KKR had to battle hard in the face of Riyan Parag’s exceptional fifty, but they held their nerves to secure a much-needed victory.
After winning the toss, Ajinkya Rahane, the captain of KKR, decided to bat on a hot afternoon at their home venue. In the second over of the KKR innings, Yudhvir Singh Charak cleaned up Sunil Narine but not before getting smashed for a couple of boundaries, and following that, Rahmanullah Gurbaz and Ajinkya Rahane shared a 56-run stand for the second wicket, to set up the KKR innings.
Following a good innings of 35 runs in 25 balls from Rahmanullah Gurbaz, it was the turn of Angkrish Raghuvanshi to put together yet another decent partnership with Ajinkya Rahane. With the dismissal of KKR captain for 30 runs in 24 balls, Andre Russell arrived at the crease, and he changed the complexion of the match completely in the favour of his team, thanks to some brutal power-hitting in the latter stages after Angkrish Raghuvanshi was dismissed for 44 runs in 31 balls.
The promotion of Andre Russell to number five in the batting order worked exceptionally well for the KKR, scoring 57* runs in just 25 balls with four fours and six maximums, to help his team reach 206/4. In the run chase, RR lost the teenage sensation Vaibhav Suryavanshi for four runs in two balls on the bowling of Vaibhav Arora before Moeen Ali dismissed Kunal Singh Rathore for no score on his IPL debut.
It led to Yashasvi Jaiswal and Riyan Parag sharing a 58-run stand for the third wicket, to give some hope to RR, but after Moeen Ali broke the partnership, the batting lineup of the visitors started to crumble once again as Varun Chakravarthy cleaned up Dhruv Jurel and Wanindu Hasaranga for no score, to put RR in trouble at 71/5 in the ninth over.
After that, RR captain Riyan Parag shared a 92-run stand with Shimron Hetmyer, to bring his team back into the contest before Harshit Rana took the wickets of both of them, to put KKR in pole position for a win once again. Parag ended up scoring 95 runs in just 45 balls with six fours and eight sixes, including five in a row against Moeen Ali, following which Shubham Dubey and Jofra Archer brought RR to the brink of a win, only for the latter to get run out in an attempt to take the second-run when they needed three runs to win.
