Currently, the eastern greats, Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) are locking horns with R Ashwin-led Kings XI Punjab (KXIP) at the iconic Eden Gardens in Kolkata. After winning the toss, the KXIP skipper asked the hosts to bat first. Unlike the last game for KKR, Sunil Narine came out to bat with Chris Lynn for the opening position.
During the toss, the KKR skipper, Dinesh Karthik revealed that they have made no changes to the squad, on the other hand, Ashwin revealed four changes in their squad, Nicolas Pooran, Mujeeb ur Rahman, Sam Curran and Ankit Rajpoot made way for, David Miller, Andrew Tye, Varun Chakravarthy and Hardus Viljoen.
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Soon after that both of them dismissed and then Nitish Rana and Robin Uthappa added 110 runs for the third wicket. After a stellar partnership between Rana and Uthappa, Andre Russell walked into a standing ovation. However, it was not a very fluent start for the big Jamaican as the Kings XI bowlers executed their plans perfectly.
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Mohammed Shami in the 17th over, came from around the wicket and nailed the perfect yorker which slipped under the bat of the big man and crashed into the stumps. Russell was going back to the pavilion and Shami started celebrating but then the Eden crowd stunned as the umpire intervened. The umpire raised his arm to signal a no-ball as there were only three fielders inside the 30-yard circle.
Here is the video of the same:
https://twitter.com/Vidshots1/status/1110938608880500736
Russell walked back and what happened next was nothing but pleasing for the Kolkata crowd as he the big man then displayed his brutal power plundering the KXIP bowlers for 5 sixes, 3 fours later in the next two overs bowled by Andrew Tyee and Shami respectively. His knock ended in the final over as he smashed 48 off 17 balls as he was later on caught in the deep brilliantly by Mayank Agarwal.
Here is the video of the same:
https://twitter.com/Vidshots1/status/1110949515647954946
Here is the video of Russell’s dismissal:
https://twitter.com/Vidshots1/status/1110949515647954946
The spotlight was back on Ashwin as he forgot to have a look at the fielder which proved to be very costly for KXIP the hosts reached the total of 218 runs in the first innings.
