Chris Lynn and Gautam Gambhir star of the show as Kolkata Knight Riders defeated Gujarat Lions by 10 wickets with 5 overs still to go. For Kolkata, both their opening Batsmen showed their class and strength with Unbeaten knocks of 93* and 76*. It was an absolute nightmare for Gujarat Lions bowlers in the third match of IPL10.
Kolkata won the toss and choose to field first. Both teams are set to miss their key players due to injury. As for Gujarat lions, it’s Ravindra Jadeja and Dwayne Bravo and Kolkata will miss their two top class all-rounder’s Shakib Al Hasan who is on National duty whereas Andre Russell has been banned for doping charges. For Gujarat, Jason Roy and Brendon McCullum open the innings. They both started steadily until Piyush Chawla got dangerous looking Jason Roy out. McCullum and Raina build a decent partnership of 50 runs, just then Kuldeep Yadav got the wicket of Brendon McCullum. Aaron Finch hit two consecutive sixes of Yusuf Pathan’s over but in next over of Kuldeep Yadav. On the other hand, Suresh Raina was playing sensible cricket and completed his fifty. Dinesh Karthik quick fire 47 of 25 with 6 fours and 2 sixes provided momentum to Gujarat Innings. At the end of first innings, Gujarat scored decent 183/4 thanks to Raina who scored 68 not out of 51 with 7 fours. In the bowling department, Kuldeep Yadav peeked of them with 4overs 2 for 25. Trent Boult and Piyush Chawla took one wicket each.
The second innings started as the Captain Gautam Gambhir and Chris Lynn walks into the middle. Both the batsmen were looking in some hurry to finish the match as the boundaries started flowing. Chris Lynn didn’t know to respect the bowlers feeling, as he hit them all-around the ground. On the other hand, Gautam Gambhir was patiently dealing in boundaries and kept the scoreboard flowing. Gujarat Lions bowlers had no clue where to bowl to them as none of them was spared from these batsmen. Gautam Gambhir smashed 5 boundaries in one over of Shivil Koushik and on the next over Chris Lynn smashed 3 six and 1 four to Dwayne Smith. Meanwhile both the batsmen completed their fifty in style as Kolkata scored 100 runs in just 8 overs. For Chris Lynn, it was his maiden fifty in IPL whereas Captain Gambhir scored his 32nd fifty. After scoring fifty both the batsmen started playing more freely and they kept on thrashing un-experienced bowling line-up of Gujarat. Both these batsmen were an absolute nightmare for Gujarat Lions as for now they have to really plan their line-up for next match. Chris Lynn took on Dhawal Kulkarni in the last over to hit 2 sixes and a four to complete the innings for Kolkata with almost 5.1 overs still to go. At the end, It’s Chris Lynn with a brilliant knock of 93 of just 41 balls with 6 fours and 8 massive hits was awarded Man of the Match. Gautam Gambhir too scores a handy 76 of 48 balls with 12 fours. With this Kolkata Knight Riders are at the top of the Table.
