The Kolkata Knight Riders defeated the Rajasthan Royals by seven wickets at the Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai on Monday. Riding on Nitish Rana and Rinku Singh’s efforts with the bat, Shreyas Iyer and co chased down a 153-run target with five balls to spare. 

The loss for RR, their fourth in IPL 2022, highlighted the key role the team’s spinners play in their success. For the first time this season, Ravichandran Ashwin and Yuzvendra Chahal both went wicketless. 

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The pitch was slow and gripping – an ideal situation for spinners to get a few wickets. However, on Monday, the slow bowlers for both teams combined managed to take only one wicket. Ankul Roy of KKR dismissed Karun Nair in the latter half of the first innings. 

Kolkata’s Sunil Narine delivered a miserly spell of 19 runs in his four overs. Chahal went for 31 and Ashwin 33 runs. 

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Yuzvendra Chahal is the purple cap holder. The leg-spinner has picked 19 wickets this season in 10 matches. His best of 40/5 came against the Kolkata Knight Riders when they locked horns in the last time. 

Ashwin, on the other hand, has affected eight dismissals in 10 games at an economy rate of 7.10 rpo. The only other RR spinner, Riyan Parag, has picked one wicket in IPL 2022 so far. 

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While skipper Sanju Samson, after the match, put the weight off the loss on some sloppy batting, he did agree that the ‘wicket was a bit slow’. 

“The wicket was a bit slow, but they also bowled really well but with the kind of batting we had, would have liked a few more boundaries at the end and finish off a bit better. I think we were short by 15-20 runs,” the RR skipper said after the loss. 

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Ashwin and Chahal deliver eight key overs for the team every match. When the pitch, like the one from Monday, offers turn and is slow, the two are always in the game. 

Had the two delivered with a couple wickets against KKR, Iyer and co would have found chasing 153 runs a difficult ask. 

Rajasthan Royals are placed on the third rung of the IPL 2022 points table with six wins. They will next play the Punjab Kings on Saturday.