Highlights, PBKS vs KKR, IPL 2021, Match 21, Full Cricket Score: Morgan’s unbeaten 47 guides Kolkata to five-wicket win

IPL 2021, Live Cricket Score, Punjab Kings (PBKS) vs Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR): DONE AND DUSTED! Current skipper Morgan and former skipper Dinesh Karthik seal the deal for KKR with a comfortable victory for KKR. Yes, they did suffer initial blows in the chase but contributions from Tripathi (41) and Morgan (47), apart from a small cameo from Russell (10) did it for Kolkata.

Preview: Having snapped their three-match losing steak in their last game against Mumbai Indians (MI), KL Rahul’s Punjab Kings will be eager to continue their winning momentum when they take on an under pressure Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) in Match 21 of the Indian Premier League 2021 (IPL) season at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad on Monday.

This will be the first of 12 matches at the iconic stadium, which will also host all playoff matches as well as the final on 30 May.

Both teams find themselves at the wrong end of the points table, but Eoin Morgan’s KKR will be desperate to arrest the slide, finding themselves rock-bottom in eighth place with two points (One win).

Meanwhile, Punjab Kings are placed fifth in the standings with four points, and can go replace MI in fourth place with a win against Kolkata.

KL Rahul has been Punjab’s most consistent batsman this season, having scored 221 runs from five games. He is the tournament’s second highest run-getter with Delhi Capitals’ (DC) Shikhar Dhawan leading the charts with 251 runs.

Arshdeep Singh and Mohammed Shami lead the team’s bowling charts with six wickets each but the rest of the bowlers including Jhye Richardson and Riley Meredith are yet to play according to expectations.

However, PBKS bowlers did put up an improved show against MI in their last match with Shami and Ravi Bishnoi sharing four wickets between them, so that should come as an extra motivation.

One major worry for Punjab is Nicholas Pooran’s form so far. Pooran, who amassed 353 runs last season, has endured scores of 0,0,9,0 in his last four outings with the bat although he did not need to bat against MI three days back.

Meanwhile, for KKR, their top and middle-order batting is a major cause for concern.

Nitish Rana has scored two half-centuries so far as has Rahul Tripathi, Andre Russell and Pat Cummins (one fifty each) but even skipper Morgan has failed to get going. Morgan has scored only 45 runs from five games.

KKR will hope their specialist batsmen start to deliver in big games.

Russell leads the team’s wicket-taker list with seven scalps.

Squad:

Punjab Kings: KL Rahul (c & wk), Mayank Agarwal, Chris Gayle, Mandeep Singh, Prabsimran Singh, Nicholas Pooran (wk), Sarfaraz Khan, Deepak Hooda, Murugan Ashwin, Ravi Bishnoi, Harpreet Brar, Mohammed Shami, Arshdeep Singh, Ishan Porel, Darshan Nalkande, Chris Jordan, Dawid Malan, Jhye Richardson, Shahrukh Khan, Riley Meredith, Moises Henriques, Jalaj Saxena, Utkarsh Singh, Fabian Allen, Saurabh Kumar.

Kolkata Knight Riders: Eoin Morgan (c), Dinesh Karthik, Shubman Gill, Nitish Rana, Tim Seifert, Rinku Singh, Andre Russell, Sunil Narine, Kuldeep Yadav, Shivam Mavi, Lockie Ferguson, Pat Cummins, Kamlesh Nagarkoti, Sandeep Warrier, Prasidh Krishna, Rahul Tripathi, Varun Chakravarthy, Shakib Al Hasan, Sheldon Jackson, Vaibhav Arora, Harbhajan Singh, Karun Nair, Ben Cutting, Venkatesh Iyer and Pawan Negi.