Finishing in the top 4 is a good achievement in terms of the league stage but the teams at no.3 and no.4 have to go through two knockout matches in order to reach the final. The Eliminator of IPL 2021 was a battle between the bowling departments of both the teams and Kolkata Knight Riders came on top with major contributions from their spin trio. The following are some of the key performances from the Eliminator between RCB and KKR.
Sunil Narine
If it was R.Jadeja in the league stage to trouble RCB with both bat and bowl, now it was the turn of the mystery spinner in Sunil Narine. The KKR legend who has played a crucial role in their two championships delivered a champion performance and was rightly awarded the man of the match.
Narine picked up 4 wickets between over 10 and 17. He was able to build up pressure on all the 3 international stars in Kohli, De Villiers, and Maxwell which resulted in them playing a get-away shot and losing their wickets to him. Even the last match hero for RCB, Srikar Bharat felt the pressure and fell to the mystery bowler.
KKR use to open with Narine once upon a time and used him as a pinch hitter in the eliminator and he single-handedly changed the entire momentum of the match with 3 sixes in his first 3 balls. His quick-fire cameo ensured that it was only a formality for the remaining batsman.
Varun Chakaravarthy
If one mystery spinner was a headache for the RCB batting lineup, it was the turn for the other mystery bowler in Varun to repeat his performance against RCB just as he did in the league match with 3 wickets giving only 13 runs. He was not able to pick up a wicket this time around but was economical and played a part in building the pressure on the batting lineup.
Shakib Al Hasan
One of the finest all-rounders in world cricket has been contributing to KKR whenever given the opportunity. Just like Varun he did not pick up a wicket but was the part of the trio which kept control on the RCB scoring rate and his boundary on the first ball of the last over in the second innings when seven runs were required killed any hopes of a last over miracle for RCB.
Shubman Gill
Gill had scored half-centuries in the last two innings and carried his form in this match with a quick came of 29 from 18 balls and made sure that KKR utilized the powerplay as run making became difficult after that. Gill’s innings was more crucial as the other three batsmen ( V Iyer, R Tripathi, N Rana) in the top order were finding it difficult to score and contributed 55 runs but took 60 balls in total.
Harshal Patel
The purple cap holder picked up 2 more wickets and equalled D.Bravo’s record for the most wickets in one IPL season. Patel did try his very best and gave crucial blows to KKR whenever things were slipping away from RCB. He picked up Gill in the 6th over who was looking dangerous and came back to pick up V.Iyer in the 11th over.
Yuzvendra Chahal
Chahal had picked up 12 wickets in the UAE leg and was able to add to his tally in the eliminator. Just like always, Chahal was able to build pressure on the middle order and took the wickets of Tripati and Rana to give some home to RCB. He ended his spell with figures of 4-016-2.
Mohammed Siraj
Despite being economical, Siraj just picked up 3 wickets in the 7 league games in UAE. RCB not picking up many wickets in the powerplay had a lot to do with Siraj’s wicket-taking form. With 3 overs to go and 15 to get, Siraj did try to give RCB an outside hope by picking up both Narine and Karthik who were building a steady partnership to complete the formalities.