These aren’t the matches the average fan will remember the Kolkata team by, but to the faithful, they’re part of the canon
Sreshth Shah22-Mar-2020The Gul and Ganguly Show
v Kings XI Punjab, 2008
By the final game of their first season, the Knight Riders were only playing for pride. Brendon McCullum and Shoaib Akhtar were not available, debutant Ajantha Mendis’ mystery spin was not effective, and the bowling unit as a whole was getting pounded. But in this game, Umar Gul and Sourav Ganguly scripted a feel-good story for the Kolkata fans.Gul’s four-for was just the appetizer. Ganguly played arguably his best innings in a KKR jersey, smashing 86 not out in just 53 balls, and sharing an entertaining 49-run seventh-wicket stand with Gul to keep the Knight Riders within sight of the 175-run target. By the final over, Gul was gone and the pressure was all on Ganguly. He faced Irfan Pathan with 15 required. Pathan gave way first, going full twice in the first three balls and getting hit for two sixes and a two. Ganguly then tapped a single to complete the win, ending his team’s disappointing first season on a high.First final, first win
Qualifier 1 v Delhi Daredevils, 2012
KKR batted first in the franchise’s biggest IPL game till then, and Brendon McCullum, Gautam Gambhir and Jacques Kallis each fell after going past 30 – a couple of them at a below-average strike-rate. The pressure was on the middle order to make amends. After 16 overs the Knight Riders were 106 for 4, heading to a sub-par total. Then came Yusuf Pathan and Laxmi Ratan Shukla. The latter raced to a 11-ball 24, goosing the innings into life, and when Pathan took strike for the final over, off Varun Aaron, he hammered a six and two fours. The momentum had shifted.Defending 162, Shakib Al Hasan dismissed David Warner with the new ball. L Balaji, Kallis, Sunil Narine and Iqbal Abdullah conceded six or fewer per over, and when Ross Taylor was caught near the boundary in the penultimate over, it was celebration time. By the end of the weekend, the Knight Riders were IPL champions for the first time.Bro Yo goes big again
v Sunrisers Hyderabad, 2014
The Knight Riders were IPL champions again in 2014, getting there on the back of a nine-game winning streak. In the seventh game of that run, Yusuf Pathan smashed 72 off 22 deliveries to chase a target of 161 with nearly six overs to spare. The overs were important because Knight Riders had to win within 15.1 overs to make the playoffs as a top-two side.The 11th over, from Parvez Rasool, went for two sixes and two fours, and the next one, from Karn Sharma, had two more sixes, but Pathan saved his best for the 13th, delivered by Dale Steyn, when the ask was 45 off 20. The faster Steyn bowled, the quicker the ball reached the boundary. The first four balls were flat-batted past the bowler, slogged over deep midwicket, bludgeoned over long-off, and pulled to the square-leg fence. Steyn could only smile when Pathan edged the fifth ball past the keeper for another four. Six balls later, Pathan was out, but not before bringing the Knight Riders to within eight runs of the target. After the game, Gambhir said he had “never seen this kind of innings”.Narine, no gain: Sunil Narine’s 75 helped KKR get to 245, and King’s XI Punjab couldn’t keep up with the asking rate•BCCINarine savages Punjab
v Kings XI Punjab, 2018
A total of 459 runs were scored in this game, and Narine made 75 of them. By 2018, he had developed as a pinch hitter and was opening the batting with Chris Lynn. In this game, he showed there was more to his batting than just hand-eye co-ordination, capitalising on his early assault and anchoring his side till the 12th over. Andrew Tye, Mujeeb Ur Rahman, Axar Patel, and R Ashwin all leaked over ten an over. Narine’s dismissal offered no respite: Andre Russell lashed 31 off 14, the captain, Dinesh Karthik, 50 off 23, and Javon Searles hit a six off the last ball of the innings. By the end, the Knight Riders had racked up 245 for 6, currently the fourth highest IPL total of all time. KL Rahul crunched 66 off 29 balls to give Kings XI’s chase a flying start, but they could not keep up with the asking rate, and Prasidh Krishna and Russell shared five wickets in a 31-run win.Russell v Pandya
v Mumbai Indians, 2019
Going in to this game, Mumbai Indians were looking for their ninth straight victory over the Knight Riders. In their way stood two men – one of them with something to prove.Shubman Gill produced his best IPL performance, cracking a sublime 45-ball 76 that contained some eye-catching punches off the back foot and flicks off the hip. His innings set the base for KKR to get to 97 for 1 after ten overs.Leading up to the game, a frustrated Andre Russell had criticised the management for making him bat too far down the order. Batting at three here, it was time to put his money where his mouth was. He struggled for a dozen deliveries, but once he got his eye in, he spared nobody: Rahul Chahar, Hardik Pandya, Lasith Malinga and Jasprit Bumrah were all mauled as Russell made 80 and took his side to 232.Pandya was not about to let Mumbai’s streak end so easily. He brought the chase alive with 91 off 34, but his dismissal in the 18th over swung things KKR’s way again. This time, they weren’t going to let go. Russell starred again, bowling four overs for 25 runs and two wickets, and KKR finally ended the mother of all IPL hoodoos.
