Kolkata Knight Riders registered their first win of the season as they comfortably defeated the defending champions Chennai Super Kings by 6 wickets in the IPL 2022 opener on Saturday at the Wankhede Stadium.
Sent in to bat first, the Kolkata fast bowlers came down heavily on the Chennai batting line-up. The team never recovered from the hurtful loss of their openers in the initial overs. Ruturaj Gaikwad and Devon Conway who lost their wickets to Umesh Yadav had barely scored any runs for the Jadeja-led side. However, towards the end, MSD and Jadeja's fightback with an unbeaten 50 and 26 helped the team post a below-par 132 run target.
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For Kolkata, it was a cakewalk. Ajinkya Rahane did most of the job for the team with a 44 off 34. Although the team was losing wickets at regular intervals, late cameos by Shreyas Iyer and Sam Billings helped Kolkata chase down the score with 9 balls to spare. Dwayne Bravo clinched 3 wickets for Chennai.
While Chennai will next face Lucknow on 31st March, Kolkata will play RCB on 30th March.