Kolkata set to miss IPL semi-finals
The Kolkata Knight Riders are unlikely to reach the semi-finals of this year’s IPL, their loss to the Chennai Super Kings yesterday making a top-four finish a near impossible task.
After each of the eight teams have played 12 matches for the season, Kolkata, with five wins and seven losses, now find themselves one win adrift of five other teams in the race for a top-four finish with a worse net run-rate than any other team in the competition.
The reality is it’s now largely out of Kolkata’s control whether they play in the semi-finals of the IPL for the first time in the three seasons the competition has been up and running. And that’s a fact not lost on Kolkata coach Dav Whatmore.
Asked whether his team will struggle to make the semis following yesterday’s loss, Whatmore answered: “It appears that way. Teams can still get in there, if they’ve got a healthy run-rate, with seven wins. We have five, we have got two games to go, we’ll press very hard from a pride point of view. But you need to have a pretty decent, healthy run-rate to still feel confident of making fourth spot.”
That’s two things Kolkata don’t have after their nine-wicket thumping away from home by Chennai yesterday.
The chances of Sourav Ganguly’s side snatching a win in what was a crunch match for both teams were wafer thin after R Ashwin unleashed a potent spell of bowling upon the visiting side.
The Chennai off-spinner, who finished with figures of 3-16, sent big-hitting pair Chris Gayle (seven) and Brendan McCullum (0) back to the pavilion in the third over of the match and with his first delivery of the fifth over added David Hussey (0) to his list of victims.
Kolkata were left reeling at 4-19 and while Angelo Mathews (48 from 48 balls) made a valiant attempt to steer his side to a competitive total of 139 but Murali Vijay and Suresh Raina ensured Chennai reached the 140-run target without breaking a sweat.
If KKR thought they might be in with a chance of winning this one when Gayle bowled Matthew Hayden for a duck, any such notions of victory were soon dashed as Vijay (50 not out ) and Raina (78 not out), gorged themselves on runs to surpass Kolkata’s total in just 13.3 overs.
In the wash-up, Chennai vaulted to second place in the IPL points table and in a prime position to reach the semis, while Kolkata slumped to seventh with their top four hopes fading after a promising start to the season.
Where did it all go wrong? It’s not something even Whatmore is quite able to put his finger on, saying: “The long answer will take quite some time to tease out, but the short answer is that, you know, we didn’t play well enough.”
All the Knight Riders can do now is to win their last two matches and cross their fingers some other results fall their way. But the chances of either aren’t high.
Even the section of their destiny Kolkata can control doesn’t lend itself to much hope. The positives are that KKR play hosts to their final two opponents. The negatives are twofold. The first is that those opponents are teams with a more realistic chance of seeing some semi-final action in the Rajasthan Royals and the team that has stood head and shoulders above the rest for the majority of the competition, the Mumbai Indians.
The second is, based on their form in their two most recent matches, the other being a seven wicket loss to the Royal Challengers Bangalore, they are simply not up to the standard of the other teams locked the battle for a semi-final spot.
Following the match against Bangalore, Ganguly told the media that, “if we play cricket like this we don't deserve to be in the semis. There are other teams who are playing better than us.”
After watching Kolkata crumble to Chennai yesterday, it’s hard to disagree with the KKR skipper on either point.
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