Kolkata,
\nSkipper Dinesh Karthik\u2019s rearguard half-century and astute marshalling of his bowlers helped Kolkata Knight Riders eliminate inaugural winners Rajasthan Royals by 25 runs in a see-saw Indian Premier League (IPL) contest on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Needing 170 to win, Rajasthan got off to a strong start but the wheels came off their chase once skipper Ajinkya Rahane (46) and No. 3 Sanju Samson (50) fell.<\/p>\n
Two-time champions Kolkata, who restricted Rajasthan to 144\/4, will face Sunrisers Hyderabad in the second qualifier on Friday for a place in Sunday\u2019s final against two-time champions Chennai Super Kings.<\/p>\n
The Rahane-Samson duo added a match-high 62 runs but Rajasthan sorely missed Jos Buttler, back in England for national duty, whose five fifties were crucial to their playoff qualification.<\/p>\n
Kolkata\u2019s spin twins \u2014 Kuldeep Yadav (1\/18) and Piyush Chawla (2\/24) \u2014 were outstanding with the ball, conceding only 42 runs in their eight overs to choke Rajasthan at the Eden Gardens.<\/p>\n
Earlier, Karthik led from the front with a fluent 52 and Andre Russell muscled 49 not out to help the hosts overcome a top-order collapse and post a competitive 169\/7.<\/p>\n
Rajasthan off-spinner Krishnappa Gowtham denied Kolkata a flying start, dismissing Sunil Narine and Robin Uthappa in successive overs as the hosts slumped to 51\/4 in eight overs.<\/p>\n
Karthik\u2019s calm presence and prolific run have been crucial to Kolkata\u2019s campaign and the right-hander once again shone with the bat to arrest the slide.<\/p>\n
He raised 55 precious runs with Shubman Gill (28) to steady the ship but it was West Indian Russell who provided the late assault to take Kolkata past the 150-run mark.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Kolkata, Skipper Dinesh Karthik\u2019s rearguard half-century and astute marshalling of his bowlers helped Kolkata Knight Riders eliminate inaugural winners Rajasthan Royals by 25 runs in a see-saw Indian Premier League (IPL) contest on Wednesday. Needing 170 to win, Rajasthan got off to a strong start but the wheels came off their chase once skipper Ajinkya […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31952,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31951","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31951"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31951\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31953,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31951\/revisions\/31953"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}