For the fourth time, Venkatesh Iyer stood tall throughout the key game for the Kolkata Knight Riders, enabling them to advance to the IPL final. Sunrisers Hyderabad was defeated by his team by eight wickets. With 38 balls remaining, KKR defeated the moderate 160-run target thanks to a brilliant innings by Venkatesh, who scored an undefeated 51 runs off 28 balls. This demonstrated their total domination over the 2016 champs.
Despite losing their openers Rahmanullah Gurbaz (23) and Sunil Narine (21) early in the match, KKR was always in control of the game as the left-handed batter showed off his six-hitting skills by hitting four maximums and smashing the SRH bowlers. Earlier, Mitchell Starc broke the back of SRH’s dangerous batting with an incredible opening burst of three wickets in the powerplay. With half-centuries from the Iyer pair, the chase proved to be a piece of cakewalk for KKR as they were eventually shot out for a meager 159 in 19.3 overs.
Before the interview with the announcers, Venkatesh showed off his “mamba side” in a lighthearted manner following the match. Broadcaster Harsha Bhogle was taken aback by the elegant batter’s antics as the camera began to roll when he was standing and making a side pose.
But he smiled and said he was sorry right away to the senior broadcaster.
After KKR’s past two league stage matches were washed out, the Madhya Pradesh batsman claimed that he was a little desperate to go out and show off his talent in the middle.
We hadn’t played since the eleventh, so we were all excited to show off our skills. This desire to bat was above and beyond confidence. He told reporters, “The wicket was really good, credit goes to our bowlers for bowling them out for about 160.”
The team was sad, according to Venkatesh, a senior member of the KKR team now, that the last two matches were called off since the brake might have changed the momentum away from them.
“In a tournament like this, momentum is really important, we have seen that with RCB winning their matches continuously and gaining the momentum even we wanted that momentum, so we wanted to go out and wanted the rain to stop but it was disappointing,” he stated.
He acknowledged that Jay Mehta and Shah Rukh Khan, the team’s owners, are responsible for constantly inspiring the players and maintaining a positive attitude.
“But, we were the table toppers and we have got a lot of support from the management, credit to the owners, SRK and Jay sir were also there tonight to support us,” Venkatesh stated.
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