Jos Buttler once again shows why he is the master of the chase

If Jos Buttler is out in the middle, don’t write off Rajasthan Royals during a chase.

Buttler notched up his second century of this edition of the IPL and grabbed the headlines from Sunil Narine, just as he had done against Royal Challengers Bengaluru and Virat Kohli in the first week of April. Kohli’s unbeaten century was countered by Buttler’s. Tonight Narine’s ton went in vain as Buttler remained unconquered on 107.

Buttler had gone 15 balls without a boundary at one point but made up for it with a flurry of big shots towards the end. With nine needed in the last over,

Buttler refused to take a single off two consecutive balls after hitting the first ball from Varun Chakravarthy for a six. He tried a reverse slog in the fourth ball but it went to the fielder at short-third man. Was there a twist in the tale?

Three off two needed for a win and two of those runs came as a tired Buttler and non-striker Avesh Khan ran like hares. A single off the last ball, with the entire field in with the exception of long-off, sealed a remarkable win — the joint highest successful chase in the IPL.

Another Last Over Thriller 🤩

A Jos Buttler special guides @rajasthanroyals over the line and further extends their lead at the 🔝 🙌 🙌

Scorecard ▶️ https://t.co/13s3GZLlAZ #TATAIPL | #KKRvRR pic.twitter.com/d3FECR81X1

— IndianPremierLeague (@IPL) April 16, 2024

Kolkata might have thought they had this in the bag with Narine, Varun Chakaravarthy and Harshit Rana taking two wickets apiece but some shrewd hitting from Buttler and the ballistic batting of Rovman Powell — 26 off 13 — kept Royals in the game.

Earlier, Harshit had stopped Riyan Parag’s rampage just as the 22-year-old was threatening to take the match away from the home team with his blistering 34 off 14 balls. But as long as Buttler was in the middle, hope remained for the RR faithful.

Yashasvi Jaiswal started off proceedings for Rajasthan by mining 11 runs from the first over by Mitchell Starc. But his lack of form would come into the fore soon. A wild swing resulted in a nick to Venkatesh Iyer in the slips as Vaibhav Arora gave Kolkata a much-needed early wicket. Captain Sanju Samson threatened for a bit but was then dismissed by Harshit for 12.

Narine reborn

“Whenever he comes in, he is hard to read and he’s got that poker face all throughout, we want him to perform the way he has,” captain Shreyas Iyer had said during the toss about Sunil Narine.

On a humid Wednesday night under the bright lights, Rajasthan bowlers could not rein in KKR’s destructor-in-chief. Narine smashed them all around the field, scoring his maiden IPL century in 49 balls. The third-ever centurion for Kolkata would ultimately fall to Trent Boult in the 18th over after scoring 109 runs.

Sunil Narine smashed his maiden T20 century for KKR vs RR in Kolkata on Tuesday. (Sportzpics)

Early in the match, Yuzvendra Chahal and Ravichandran Ashwin both were pounded by the West Indies allrounder. Chahal was smashed for two fours and two sixes in the 16th over as Narine brought up his ton. Even before that, Narine had signaled his intent, reaching 50 with a six in an innings filled with 13 fours and four sixes.

Narine, who after an uncharacteristically quiet start, settled into a groove thanks to the support provided by Angkrish Raghuvanshi. They shared an 85-run partnership and it helped settle the Knights’ nerves. To provide more context to Raghuvanshi’s impact, KKR were 21/1 in the 4th over when Phil Salt departed and ended the powerplay at 56/1.

Raghuvanshi, who scored 278 runs in 2022 U-19 World Cup, has quickly made the KKR No.3 slot his own after an injury to Nitish Rana. The Delhi lad, who had scored a blistering half century against Delhi Capitals, helped the Knights find their way into the match after a glacial start, smashing three fours in the fifth over by Trent Boult and then following it up with another boundary off Kuldeep Sen. The carnage was halted after the youngster was caught by Kuldeep Sen off an Ashwin delivery for 30.

Iyer’s hot-cold season

Even as Narine single-handedly took Kolkata to a dominant total, a worry for Kolkata will be the lack of consistency from their other batsman with captain Iyer continuing to blow hot and cold this season. He was dismissed for just 11 runs. This takes Iyer’s tally in this season’s IPL to just 140 runs with his highest being 39*. He has scored 0, 39, 18, 34, 39* and 11 with a strike rate of just 125.26, which is far from optimum.

Meanwhile, Phil Salt, who had scored 89 in the last match against Lucknow here, could not make an impact. He could have gone for a duck but Parag dropped a dolly. Avesh Khan snapped the dangerous Englishman in the 4th over.

Andre Russell scored 13 runs from 10 balls with Rinku Singh and Venkatesh Iyer getting just the last two overs to flex their muscles. But Narine had done enough damage, or so thought KKR till Buttler changed the script.