Staff Reporter.
South Africa’s Quinton de Kock struck an unbeaten 97 as holders Kolkata Knight Riders registered their first win of the IPL season with an eight-wicket hammering of Rajasthan Royals on Wednesday.
Spinners Moeen Ali and Varun Chakravarthy combined to help restrict Rajasthan to 9-151 after KKR elected to field first in Guwahati.
De Kock bossed the chase with his 61-ball innings laced with eight fours and six sixes as Kolkata achieved their target with 15 balls to spare.
De Kock, who has retired from Tests and one-day international cricket for South Africa and whose T20 international future remains uncertain, showed no signs of rustiness.
“To be fair, haven’t felt any challenges yet,” De Kock said.
Have had three months off which felt nice. Had about a 10-day build-up to this season. Only my second game here, just taking it as I see it.”
Kolkata signed De Kock in November’s auction after he was released by Lucknow Super Giants.
He handed his team a quick start, hitting two fours but then lost opening partner Moeen, run out for 5.
Skipper Ajinkya Rahane fell after a brisk 18 but De Kock stood firm and along with impact substitute Angkrish Raghuvanshi, who made 22, steered the team home in an unbeaten stand of 83.
De Kock finished with a six off Jofra Archer as Kolkata bounced back from their opening loss to Royal Challengers Bengaluru.
Rajasthan suffered their second straight loss.
Wickets kept tumbling for Rajasthan and despite wicketkeeper-batsman Dhruv Jurel’s 33 and 16 from Jofra Archer, they settled for a below-par total.
“I think 170 was a reasonable score but we fell short by 20 runs,” said Riyan Parag.
“The plan was to get Quinny out early but he didn’t so we shifted to containing them in the middle overs.”
KKR: Quinton de Kock (wk), Venkatesh Iyer, Ajinkya Rahane (capt), Rinku Singh, Moeen Ali, Andre Russell, Ramandeep Singh, Spencer Johnson, Vaibhav Arora, Harshit Rana, Varun Chakravarthy.
RR: Yashasvi Jaiswal, Sanju Samson, Nitish Rana, Riyan Parag, Dhruv Jurel, Shimron Hetmyer, Wanindu Hasaranga, Jofra Archer, Maheesh Theekshana, Thushar Deshpande, Sandeep Sharma.