IPL 2018, RR vs KKR: 5 Talking Points

#3 KKR’s spinners deliver as a team on a helpful pitch

On what was a helpful pitch for the spinners, KKR’s spinners delivered a complete team performance. The decision to bring the spinners in right from the start of the innings paid rich dividends.

Kuldeep Yadav and Piyush Chawla were really effective as they never allowed the RR batsmen to get away. One of the main reasons for the total of RR only being 160 runs was Piyush Chawla' s spell of 4-0-18-1 which won him the man of the match award.

With D’Arcy Short struggling against spin, the likes of Piyush Chawla and Kuldeep Yadav made sure that the power play overs belonged to KKR. And not only them, Dinesh Karthik bought on the part-timer who rose to fame as a bowler by dismissing Virat Kohli and AB De Villiers- Nitish Rana to continue applying the pressure on the RR batting lineup.

Despite Sunil Narine having an off day conceding 48 runs in his four overs, the visitors ensured constant pressure was put on the hosts through the spin. RR’s batsmen enjoyed the pace on the ball so it was a very good decision to unleash more spin on them to curtail them to a below par total of 160 runs.