After taking four wickets in the first innings, Narine followed with three sixes as KKR entered Qualifier 2.
Sunil Narine gave a glimpse of his ‘old secret’ with the ball and then topped with three monster sixes as Kolkata Knight Riders’ four-wicket win in the thrilling ‘Eliminator’ saw Virat Kohli lead the Royal Challengers to the IPL trophy. The dream of winning was dashed. Bangalore.
KKR will now take on Delhi Capitals in the second qualifier on Wednesday and will decide on the rivals of Chennai Super Kings for the title clash to be held on October 15.
Narine, who had to rework his action several times after he came under suspicion due to a suspicious action, single-handedly “finished” Royal Challengers Bangalore with 4 for 21.
He then played a crucial innings of 26 off 15 balls, which eventually eased the difficult target of 139 runs. KKR returned home with two balls to spare.
Kohli, who was captaining RCB last time, made a controversial decision by opting to bat on a slower surface, which also turned.
Narine (4/21) sent RCB’s biggest guns back into the dug-out as Kohli, AB de Villiers and Glenn Maxwell had no answer for their turning deliveries in pressure situations.
Varun Chakravarthy (0/20) didn’t concede a single boundary and Shakib Al Hasan (0/24 inches) also kept the batsmen on a tight grip, KKR’s spin trio conceding only 65 runs in 12 overs with four boundaries.
Defending a low score was never easy, but with Harshal Patel’s all-time highest wicket save of 32 runs (in one edition), RCB had nothing to write home about as another season began. It happened in a bang.
Once again, skipper Kohli’s inability to win pressure matches and big ticket tournaments was proved by KKR’s spinners who managed to tie the batsmen in the knot. The captain’s performance during the middle overs should not be forgotten about in any game.
KKR’s chase could have been a bit difficult but Narine dismissed Dan Christian for three sixes in the 12th over, which proved decisive in the end.
However, the evening started well for RCB as Devdutt Padikkal (21 off 18 balls) and Kohli (39 off 33 balls) got off to a good start adding 49 runs in the first five powerplay overs.
The opening pair attacked Shivam Mavi under pressure with five fours in the first few overs.
However it was Lockie Ferguson (2/30), whose extra pace tried to cut Padikkal as the left-hander, dragged a delivery, pitched well outside the off-stump.
Kona India, the hero of RCB’s last league match (9 runs off 15 balls) was clearly upset as the spinners caught the ball on the surface.
He was the first of Narine’s four victims when he tried to lift the spinner at long-off but did not reach the delivery pitch and was dismissed in the deep by Venkatesh Iyer.
Kohli, who has started well in most of the games but lost momentum with the spread of the field after the powerplay, once again went into a shell.
The shot that got him out was a disappointment as the slog sweep for a fuller delivery from Narine was never in progress. The result was a pegged back leg-stump which spelled doom for RCB as well.
AB de Villiers (11) has had the worst IPL season and it was Narine’s real beauty – a classical off-break that went through the gate to put the great Proteas to shame.
RCB’s season’s best player Maxwell (15) was considered a bad day according to the ‘law of average’ and caught him trying to sweep Narine’s off-spinner, who would make it a dream in the short third- went to the man. Day for Trinidad man.
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