Lions tamed by Knight Riders: Lahore outfit lose to Kolkata by four wickets

KARACHI:

Lahore Lions lost their first league match to Kolkata Knight Riders by four wickets of the Champions League Twenty20 league round at Hyderabad.

Kolkata came into the match with a win in their bags against Chennai Super Kings. They sent Lahore Lions to bat first with the dew factor coming into play in the latter half of the match.

Lions were given a solid start by opener Ahmed Shahzad (59) as he struck five boundaries and four maximums. No other batsmen was able to make a useful contribution except Umar Akmal who scored a blistering 40 off 24 balls to lead Lions to a respectable total of 151-7.

Man-of-the-match Sunil Narine was able to force Lahore batsmen capitulate as he bagged three wickets for just nine runs in four overs.

“Mainly I was trying to keep down the run rate in the powerplay and hopefully pick up a wicket or two,” said Narine in the post-match presentation ceremony. “He [Kuldeep Yadav] is a pretty good bowler but he is young and has a lot to learn.”

In reply, Kolkata seemed well above mark in their chase with opener Robin Uthappa and captain Gautam Gambhir scoring 100 runs for the first-wicket partnership. Uthapa fell for 46 in the 12th over. He was accounted by Adnan Rasool.

Soon after the gap of one over Gambhir had to take the long walk back with 60 runs to his name after Mustafa Iqbal cleaned him up.

The match went into a thriller phase as soon as Gambhir’s wicket fell. Incoming Manvinder Bisla (6) and Yusuf Pathan (11) managed to add meager contributions but were accounted by Aizaz Cheema who gave 42 runs in his four overs.

Wahab Riaz was called on to bowl the 19th over with nine required of 12 balls. He was up to the task and caught Ryan ten Doeschate in front of the wickets for an LBW spilling away only four runs.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 22^nd, 2014.