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Continuing their supremacy at home, defending champions Kolkata Knight Riders rode on Piyush Chawla's match-winning four-wicket haul to beat Delhi Daredevils by 13 runs in the Indian Premier League match at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata, on Thursday.
- Scorecard
Delh's pursuit of 172 was given a severe blow when the Chawla (4/32) claimed three wickets -- Kedar Jadhav, Yuvraj Singh and JP Duminy -- in two overs to reduce them to 111 for five in the 16th over as the visitors could never recover from the blow and finished on a disappointing 158 for six in their 20 overs.
This was Delhi's seventh loss of the season as they slipped to seventh position in the eighth team table with eight points from 11 matches and their hopes to qualify for the last four is all but over.
With a second successive win at home, KKR (13 points), on the other hand, brightened their play-off hopes as they jumped past Royal Challengers Bangalore to occupy third place.
Delhi promoted Manoj Tiwary to open the innings but the local lad failed to get going as he made 25 before he was dismissed by Chawla after an opening stand of 63 runs from 59 balls.
His opening partner Iyer (40) fell in the very next as he foxed by Hogg's guile and dragged the ball onto his off-stump.
Chawla struck a twin blow in the 14th over dismissing Kedar Jadhav (10) and Yuvraj Singh (0) in the space of four balls as skipper Duminy, who provided some resistance at the other end, too ran
out of partners and became the leg-spinner's fourth victim.
It was a dream second spell for Chawla who claimed three wickets giving away nine runs to put his team firmly in control.
Sunil Narine, on a final warning for his action from the BCCI, was introduced in the fifth over in which he conceded 10 runs.
Narine looked innocuous as he bowled with caution and returned wicketless in his 31 from four overs.
Earlier, defending champions Kolkata Knight Riders rode on Yusuf Pathan's 42 from 24 balls to post a competitive 171 for seven in their 20 overs.
Pathan once again held KKR's innings together and struck three fours and three sixes even as Delhi picked wickets at regular intervals.
Imran Tahir (two for 46) dismissed Pathan in the penultimate over of the innings but Johan Botha blasted 17 from five balls in the last over to fire up the total after KKR elected to bat for the first time this season.
Playing with an extra bowler after Sunil Narine got a clearance from the BCCI to bowl his off-break deliveries, a relieved KKR rejigged their batting order and sent Piyush Chawla at No. 4.
The KKR leg-spinner looked unconvincing but his cameo of 22 from 19 balls kept the run-rate ticking, even as Mishra bowled a tight spell conceding two runs with one wicket from his first two overs.
Chawla almost fell on the wickets after losing his balance trying to get out of the way of an Angelo Mathews bouncer as he looked out of sorts but nevertheless KKR kept the run-rate ticking.
Delhi were severely let down by their fielding and Uthappa benefited the most after being dropped twice during his 31-ball 32 run innings. On both the occasions, the ball slipped in between the fielders' hands.
Manoj Tiwary let one slip over the boundary when Uthappa was on 15, while Yuvraj who was employed at midwicket dropped a sitter when the KKR opener was on 23.
Gambhir (12) had given KKR a good start start putting on 38 runs with Uthappa from 4.3 overs before Zaheer Khan gave Delhi the first breakthrough inducing an outside edge from the KKR skipper.
Aided by the two reprieves, Uthappa and Pandey (22) capitalised on the start as KKR coasted to 50 for one from six overs before Mishra put brakes on the run-rate conceding one run from his first over.
Uthappa looked tentative against Mishra who finally brought an end to his innings after dismissing him leg before wicket with a ball that went straight.
After being cleared again with a final warning by the BCCI hours before the match, Narine was back to lead the pack as KKR opted for a four-spin attack with Brad Hogg, Piyush Chawla and Johan Botha.
Delhi made two changes with local lad Manoj Tiwary and Albie Morkel replacing Mayank Agarwal and Nathan Coulter-Nile respectively.