IPL 2024: Twitter Abuzz with 'Gautam Gambhir Era' Praise as KKR Crush DC to Claim Top Spot in IPL 2024
On Wednesday, 3 April, the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024 hosted the Delhi Capitals (DC) vs Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) match, the 16th game of the ongoing edition of the competition. DC vs KKR game Dr. YS was held at Rajasekhar Reddy ACA-VDCA Cricket Stadium, Visakhapatnam. Kolkata Knight Riders won the toss and elected to bat first and brought Angkrish Raghuvanshi into the playing eleven. Their opposition had to make a forced change in the team as the star performer of the last match, Mukesh Kumar, was ruled out due to injury and was replaced by Sumit Kumar.
Batting first, the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) openers - Phil Salt and Sunil Narine - were as expected extremely aggressive. In the first two overs, they scored 7 and 10 runs respectively but started the carnage from the third over. In the 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th overs, KKR scored 15, 26, 12 and 18 runs to end the powerplay at 88/1. During this period, they also lost the wicket of Phil Salt, who returned to the hut with 18 off 12 balls.
18-year-old Angkrish Raghuvanshi was surprisingly promoted to bat at No. 3 and repaid the faith of Gautam Gambhir and Chandrakant Pandit with a phenomenal innings. He batted at a strike rate of 200 and put on a brilliant 104-run partnership with Sunil Narine, who himself was guns blazing. Narine looked set to score his maiden IPL century as he was getting cheeky. However, he fell 15 runs short of the feat and was clean out by Mitchell Marsh in the 13th over. Raghuvanshi was also dismissed in the second over. Sunil Narine scored 85 runs in 39 balls including 7 fours and 7 sixes, while Angkrish Raghuvanshi scored 54 runs in 27 balls with the help of 5 fours and 3 sixes. Sensational innings by Andre Russell and Rinku Singh were followed by innings from the top order batsmen.
KKR's top-class finishers faltered against a Delhi Capitals (DC) bowling unit and looked set to surpass Sunrisers Hyderabad's record for the highest score in Indian Premier League (IPL) history. Russell scored 41 off 19 balls and Rinku scored 26 off 8 balls to take KKR to 272/7. Chasing the target, Delhi Capitals (DC) had the worst start. Prithvi Shaw, Mitchell Marsh, Abhishek Porel and David Warner were sent back to the hut within 5 overs. After that, Tristan Stubbs and Rishabh Pant rescued DC from a humiliating defeat with their half-centuries and added 93 runs together. However, things turned dire for Delhi after the dismissal of the above batsmen and they were bowled out for 166 runs in 17.2 overs. KKR have won the match by 106 runs to top the points table.
Here's how fans reacted to X after the DC vs KKR IPL 2024 clash:
Korbo, Lorbo, Jeetbo Re #272🔥💯@KKRiders @DelhiCapitals #KKRvsDC
— Jhulan Goswami (@JhulanG10) April 3, 2024