Synopsis: Allen’s hands and Narine’s 200th IPL game light up Eden as KKR stay alive; GT’s chase throttled despite Gill’s 85 and Sudharsan’s hurt pride
Finn Allen’s hands did the damage. Sunil Narine’s 200th IPL game produced the turning point. Between them, Kolkata Knight Riders beat Gujarat Titans by 29 runs at Eden Gardens on Saturday night, staying alive in a season that had threatened to end weeks ago.
Finn Allen wanted to know how Nicholas Pooran did it. He watched the West Indians and found the answer in the hands. “They’ve got this beautiful flow,” Allen told BBL broadcasters once. “I just try to load with my hands, keep my hands high for as long as I can, to get as much power as possible.”
AS IT HAPPENED | KOLKATA KNIGHT RIDERS VS GUJARAT TITANS IPL 2026 HIGHLIGHTS
Kagiso Rabada, who has taken more powerplay wickets than any bowler this season, went for 94 metres over long-off in the third over. Then 92 metres over midwicket. Allen treated both lengths with identical contempt. Rashid Khan came on and was greeted with three consecutive sixes – 85 metres, 84 metres, then a pull over deep midwicket that barely needed a follow-through. Fifty off 21 balls.
In the sixth over, Allen pulled Holder hard and flat to long-on. Mohammed Siraj, running in, got fingertips, put it down. Allen was on 33 then. He went for 93. Sai Kishore tossed one up on the leg stump line, Allen backed away for the lofted drive, and the drift did what drift does – followed him, ballooned to Rashid at long-on. Only four batsmen in IPL history have hit ten or more sixes in an innings more than once – Chris Gayle four times, Abhishek Sharma and Vaibhav Suryavanshi twice each. Allen now joins them on two.
Raghuvanshi builds on
Angkrish Raghuvanshi watched Allen for a while. He kept his singles, kept Allen on strike, and waited.
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When Allen departed, Raghuvanshi and Cameron Green put on 108 together. Sundar dropped Raghuvanshi at deep square leg in the 17th over. Arshad spilled Green at deep backward square leg two overs later.
Raghuvanshi’s fifty arrived off 33 balls – his seventh in the IPL – and then he stopped waiting altogether. Rashid’s wrong’un, dragged short, was pulled over square leg for six. Siraj, in the 19th over, was taken for three sixes and a four – a paddle, a shovel over fine leg, a carve over cover. The reverse paddle off the last of them, using Siraj’s pace and floating it over the keeper’s head, was the stroke of the innings. He finished on 82, his highest IPL score. Green contributed 52. KKR finished at 247 for 2.
Narine’s moment
Sai Sudharsan did not last long. An ice pack on the left elbow in the third over, and he walked off – retired hurt, the chase barely begun. Nishant Sindhu came in instead, and Sunil Narine, in his 200th IPL game, got him first ball.
Sunil Narine registered a match-winning figures of 4-0-29-2 during KKR vs GT. (CREIMAS FOR IPL)
Shubman Gill and Jos Buttler then set about the chase together. They were watchful through the middle overs – 62 runs between overs eight and thirteen, the required rate climbing quietly. Gill attacked the spinners in bursts: two sixes off Narine in over six, two sixes and a four off Anukul in over nine, then 22 off Varun’s 14th over. But the acceleration came a fraction late – Varun finished with 0 for 47 and the equation still demanded 71 off 24.
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Narine found Gill at the moment it mattered most. The sweep was on – Gill had earned the right to play it. But the ball found Anukul at the rope, who held his nerve with feet just inside the boundary. Third umpire confirmed it. Gill gone for 85 off 49, the partnership broken at 128.
Sudharsan returned and hit 53 off 28, left elbow and all. Buttler reached 57 before Saurabh Dubey, in the 19th over, produced two dots, a wide, another dot, then Buttler caught at the boundary. Forty-one needed off seven balls. Green ended it off the last ball of the match, Tewatia caught by Raghuvanshi.
Brief scores: KKR 247/2 in 20 overs (Allen 93, Raghuvanshi 82, Green 52; Siraj 1/57) beat GT 218/4 in 20 overs (Gill 85, Sudharsan 53*, Buttler 57; Narine 2/26) by 29 runs.
