Spinners, Nitish Rana, Rinku Singh help Kolkata register clinical six-wicket win

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 sixwicket win over Chennai Super Kings at the MA Chidambaram Stadium on SundayPushed into bowling first Sunil Narine and local boy Varun Chakaravarthy bowled well to take two wickets each and keep Chennai to 1446 their lowest total of IPL 2023 Chennai had a chance to seal their place in the Playoffs at home by taking three wickets in powerplayBut Rana and Rinku had other ideas by stitching a 99run 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 highestever stand for the fourth wicket partnership against Chennai at ChepaukChennai struck in the opening over of Kolkatas chase when Deepak Chahar had Rahmanullah Gurbaz slicing a drive on a full and wide ball to deep backward point running to his rightAlso ReadMS Dhoni from 2040 spotted in stands during CSK vs PBKS Twitter reacts in shockThe pacer again struck in the third over when Venkatesh Iyer nicked straight to the short third man after being hit for two fours and in the fifth over added Jason Roys scalp by getting an outside edge on an attempt to drive off a knuckleball to short third manRinku got off the mark by driving Chahar through extra cover for four and ended the Powerplay by launching Tushar Deshpande over longoff for six He proceeded to drive Moeen Ali through extra cover and got an edge past slip to collect backtoback fours in the ninth overRana further relieved the pressure by reversesweeping 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 legWhen Ravindra Jadeja was introduced in the 12th over Rinku was quick to smash a six over the bowlers head Rana continued to toy with the field by creating room to go insideout over extra cover twice for fours off MoeenRinku went big again when he got low and slogswept Jadeja for six in the 14th over followed by Rana cutting and driving down the ground off Theekshana for backtoback foursRinku got his 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 halfcentury off 38 balls in the next over Though Rinku was runout 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 aliveEarlier Narine and Chakaravarthy got plenty of help from a challenging pitch to restrict Chennai to six runs below 150 After Ruturaj Gaikwad swept Varun Chakaravarthy for four the legspinner bounced back when he found a turn on legbreak which the righthanded batter tried to slog and topedge flew to short third manAfter Devon Conway brought out a cover drive off Chakaravarthy for four Ajinkya Rahane used Ranas pace to late dab past the third man for four and followed it up with an effortless loft over midon for six as Chennai signed off from powerplay with 521Conway got to change an lbw decision off Chakaravarthy when on 25 in the eighth over as replays showed the ball bouncing above stumps but Rahane wasnt lucky as he holed out to longon in the same overChennai plunged into trouble when Conway got a top edge on the pull off Shardul Thakur and was caught by deep square leg in the tenth over In the next over an offbreak from Sunil Narine went past Ambati Rayudus sweep and crashed into the stumps while his carrom ball beat Moeen Alis inside edge to leave the stumps in a messDube ended a 41ball noboundary spree by launching an overpitched delivery from Suyash Sharma over extra cover for six and began to attack by pulling Thakur for four He and Ravindra Jadeja smashed a six each on short balls from Suyash on either side of a noball to amass 16 runs from the 17th over before Dube smacked Chakaravarthy for six over midwicketBut Thakur pulled things back admirably by conceding only five runs including a wide in the 19th over After Jadeja ramped a bouncer straight to short third man off Vaibhav Arora in the final over Kolkata conceded only four runs on the last two balls including a wide and noball as Chennai picked only 14 runs off the last two oversBrief scoresChennai Super Kings 1446 in 20 overs Shivam Dube 48 not out Devon Conway 30 Sunil Narine 215 Varun Chakaravarthy 236 lost to Kolkata Knight Riders 1474 in 183 overs Nitish Rana 57 not out Rinku Singh 54 Deepak Chahar 327 by six wicketsThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves 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