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Kolkata Knight Riders skipper Shreyas Iyer revealed that he didn't expect his team to put the second-highest total in the history of the Indian Premier League (IPL) against Delhi Capitals at the ACA-VDCA Cricket Stadium.
The 'City of Destiny' witnessed Sunil Narine (85), Angkrish Raghuvanshi (54), Andre Russell (41) and Rinku Singh's relentless onslaught that powered KKR to the second-highest score in the history of the IPL - 272/7. Shreyas's decision to bat after winning the toss and opting to bat turned out to play a crucial factor for the 'men in purple' in Visakhapatnam. After the game, Shreyas disclosed that the ideal score that the team aimed at was between 210 to 220 runs. "No, it it didn't to be honest, we thought we will reach 210-220 but 270 was an icing on the cake," Shreyas said in the post-match presentation. Narine providing a sensational start to KKR with his knock of 85(39) played a vital role in visitors putting up a mammoth total in the first innings. Raghuvanshi coming in and playing with fearlessness further propelled KKR's score. "I said in a pre-match interview that Sunny's job is to take us off to a good start, if he doesn't get us off, that's also okay. (On Raghuvanshi) He was fearless from ball one, his work ethic is phenomenal, the way he played his shots were pleasing to the eye. It's great to see all the bowlers stepping up at the right time and capitalizing on the opportunities," Shreyas added. KKR's herculean target of 273 turned out to be too much for DC as they gave in to the pressure and ended up suffering a 106-run defeat. The pace duo of Mitchell Starc and Vaibhav Arora bagged two wickets each to reduce DC to 33/4 in the powerplay. These couple of early blows derailed DC's approach to chasing down the massive total which got more challenging with each delivery. Eventually, the required rate turned out to be too much as they ended up suffering a 106-run defeat. (ANI)
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