Sunil Narine, the team’s acting captain, was pivotal in the victory by taking three vital wickets.
For KKR to stay in the playoffs, the win was essential.
DC failed to reach KKR’s aim of 205 runs in spite of their best efforts.
Narine’s all-round performance propels KKR to victory
Narine’s brilliant performance was instrumental in restricting DC to 190/9 in their 20 overs.
He dismissed Faf du Plessis, Axar Patel, and Tristan Stubbs, and also ran out KL Rahul.
Despite a valiant effort from Vipraj Nigam who scored 38 off 19 balls for DC, he didn’t have support from his teammates.
Earlier in the match, Narine had contributed with the bat too by scoring 27 runs off just 16 balls.
Spell
Narine casts a spell that changes the game. Narine was wicketless in his first two overs, conceding 19 runs. After DC were cruising on 130/3 in 13 overs, he was brought back. Even though Axar hit Narine with the first ball for a maximum, the spinner took his wicket in response. He dismissed Stubbs in the same over.
Narine then removed du Plessis to complete his game-changing spell (4-0-29-3).
Batting performance
KKR’s strong batting line-up sets challenging target
The KKR batting line-up proved to be the key in setting a challenging total of 204 runs.
Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Ajinkya Rahane, Angkrish Raghuvanshi, and Rinku Singh all contributed significantly to the team’s total of 204/9.
Varun Chakravarthy also did his bit with the ball by taking two wickets for KKR.
His performance further strengthened the team’s position in this crucial match against DC.
Wickets
Most wickets for a team in T20 cricket
Narine has now raced to 584 wickets in T20 cricket at 21.67.
As many as 208 of those scalps have come for KKR, the joint-most for a team in men’s T20 cricket, as per Cricbuzz.
He shares the record with Samit Patel, who owns 208 T20 wickets for Nottinghamshire.
Notably, Narine has 190 wickets for KKR in the IPL at 25.39. The remaining matches were played in the Champions League T20.
Are you aware? Joint-highest wickets against DC in IPL
Narine has raced to 27 wickets versus DC in IPL history at from 24 matches at 22.96. As per ESPNcricinfo, he is now the joint-highest wicket-taker versus DC alongside R Ashwin, Jasprit Bumrah and Piyush Chawla.