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Chennai, May 14 (IANS) Captain Nitish Rana and Rinku Singh slammed critical fifties and dominated spinners with immaculate ease to help Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) stay alive in the race for Playoffs in Indian Premier League (IPL) 2023 with a clinical six-wicket win over Chennai Super Kings at the MA Chidambaram Stadium on Sunday.
Chennai had a chance to seal their place in the Playoffs at home, but Rana and Rinku had other ideas by stitching a 99-run partnership off 76 balls for the fourth wicket to take Kolkata home in a chase of 145 with nine balls to spare.
While Rana was unbeaten on 57 off 44 balls, Rinku was impressive in scoring 54 off 43 balls as the duo also achieved the distinction of stitching the highest-ever partnership for the fourth wicket against Chennai at Chepauk.
Chennai struck in the opening over when Deepak Chahar had Rahmanullah Gurbaz slicing a drive on a full and wide ball to deep backward point running to his right. The pacer again struck in the third over when Venkatesh Iyer nicked straight to short third man, after being hit for two fours.
Given a third straight over, Chahar was straightaway pulled for six by Nitish. But he bounced back with Jason Roy getting an outside edge on an attempted drive off a knuckleball to short third man.
Rinku got off the mark by driving Chahar through extra cover for four and ended the Power-play by launching Tushar Deshpande over long-off for six. He then proceeded to drive Moeen Ali through extra cover and got an edge past slip to collect back-to-back fours in the ninth over.
Rana further relieved pressure on Kolkata by reverse-sweeping Moeen for four at the start of the 11th over and immediately got a reprieve on 18 when Matheesha Pathirana dropped a tough chance after sprinting in from deep backward square leg.
When Ravindra Jadeja was introduced in the 12th over, Rinku was quick to smash a six over the bowler's head. Rana continued to toy with the field by creating room to go inside-out over extra cover twice for fours off Moeen.
Rinku went big again when he got low and slog-swept Jadeja for six in the 14th over, followed by Rana cutting and driving down the ground off Theekshana for back-to-back fours.
Rinku got his sublime fifty in 39 balls when he clipped along the ground off Pathirana on the last ball of the 16th over, followed by Rana getting his half-century in 38 balls in the next over. Though Rinku was run-out by a direct hit from Moeen in the 18th over, Rana finished off the chase in style with a four driven off Deshpande through third man to keep their playoffs hopes alive.
Brief scores:
Chennai Super Kings 144/6 in 20 overs (Shivam Dube 48 not out, Devon Conway 30; Sunil Narine 2-15, Varun Chakaravarthy 2-36) lost to Kolkata Knight Riders 147/4 in 18.3 overs (Nitish Rana 57 not out; Rinku Singh 54; Deepak Chahar 3-27) by six wickets
--IANS
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