As it happened: Kolkata Knight Riders vs Lucknow Super Giants, IPL 2022

So there was this dude who scored 140, and yet the match-winning innings could have been 40 off 15

This is the magic of T20. Lucknow Super Giants batted their entire innings without losing a single wicket, with Quinton de Kock scoring his second IPL century, but it now becomes a footnote because Rinku Singh, with 21 to get in the last over, went 4, 6, 6, against Marcus Stoinis.

Knight Riders were having a day, picking up no wickets, but losing one in the very first over. Their chances of victory see-sawing between 96.03% and 0.35%.

Rinku took them to the brink of a truly ridiculous result. But, in the middle of a game that should have been theirs now slipping away rapidly, which is right up there as the worst kind of pressure - Stoinis defended 4 off 3 by picking up two wickets in two balls. One of them was a barely believable one-handed catch from Evin Lewis that will go down in IPL folklore. What a way to seal your place in the playoffs.

17 off the penultimate over from Holder

KKR need 21 off 6. Marcus Stoinis will bowl the final over.

Narine and Rinku are not giving up.

They're tearing into Avesh Khan in the 18th over.

KKR need 38 off 12 balls.

This is how you construct an over against Andre Russell.

Avesh goes length first ball and nearly gets a catch at long-on.

Then he goes short and at the body.

Then short, outside off and out of Russell's reach.

Then yorker, tailing in at the last second, very nearly toppling him off his feet.

Then the wide yorker.

Russell couldn't line anything up.

Unpredictability at high pace.

Clear plan. Perfect execution. LSG now 96.63% favourites to win this game. Magnificent fast bowling.

Mohsin may not have broken through in his over, but he's created one in the next.

Good gamble from Rahul. Brings on the batting allrounder Stoinis for an over.

Shreyas (50 off 29) is tempted. He goes for a big hit... and he's caught at deep midwicket.

Top stuff from LSG, first from Mohsin and his nerveless 13th over, which went for only two runs, then from Rahul for taking a chance and finally from Stoinis for bringing it home

Here's Dre Russ. KKR 132 for 4 in 14 overs. They need 79 in 36 balls. Win probability 7.98%

KKR force Rahul to blink.

The LSG captain brings on one of his bigger guns, Mohsin Khan, who has picked up 2 for 6 in two overs. Normally he'd be saved for the death, but here, with Shreyas and Billings going strong, LSG need a wicket.

And he NEARLY does it!

Off-cutter slower ball sticks in the pitch and bounces sharply on an unsuspecting Shreyas. The flick to midwicket becomes a leading edge that almost carries back to the bowler

The 13th over of the chase from Mohsin Khan

KKR 127 for 3. They need 84 off 42.

There's a long way to go before this game is done. KKR are 99 for 3 in 10 overs. They're up with the required rate (10.98). Andre Russell is still to bat. And our win probability gives them 17% chance of taking this game.

KKR 115 for 3 in 11 overs. Billings 25 (13). Shreyas 39 (20). Their win probability up to 25.4%

Shreyas Iyer, at the toss, said he wanted his team to do well for the KKR coaches and the KKR fans.

A lot was expected of him when the franchise brought him on board for INR 12 crore. He'd broken into the Indian Test team on the back of a century on debut.

With Rahane and Pujara on the wane, there were spots in the middle order up for grabs and he showed great initiative.

But here, in the IPL, he's been found out a bit against short-pitched bowling. A lot of teams have been targeting him and to good effect as well.

Overcoming an issue like that takes time. And in the IPL that's the one thing nobody has. Perhaps at the end of it, Shreyas will be able to go back and tinker with his game.

S Rajesh, stats editor Quinton de Kock got two chances tonight, and Kolkata Knight Riders paid heavily for it. First, when he was on 12 off 10, Abhijeet Tomar shelled a regulation chance at third man; then when he was on 68 off 47, Sam Billings missed a chance behind the stumps.

According to ESPNcricinfo’s Luck Index, those chances cost Knight Riders around 30 runs each. After the first chance, de Kock scored a further 128 off 59. The Luck Index algorithm calculated that had de Kock been dismissed then, Lucknow Super Giants would have ended up with 28 fewer runs, which means Knight Riders would have been chasing 183 for victory.

After the second chance, de Kock went on a tear, scoring 72 off just 22. According to Luck Index, that chance cost 30 runs, which means had Billings taken that catch, the other Super Giants batters would have scored 42 off those 22 extra deliveries that de Kock faced.

This calculation is done by assuming that de Kock would have been dismissed off that ball, and the extra deliveries he faced would have gone to the other batters who didn’t bat in that innings. In a must-win game, Knight Riders have made their task even tougher with those errors in the field.

You spend all night on the field and pick up no wickets.

You go out to bat and you lose one in the first over, thanks to a spectacular catch by the guy who made piled on all the misery on you in the first place.

You're on debut and your first contribution to the game is dropping a catch with the guy on 12. That guy goes on to score 140

It's your turn to bat and you're out for 4 off 8.

KKR, its not your day.
QdK, get yourself a lottery ticket

Shiva Jayaraman, senior stats analyst: Kolkata Knight Riders have a tricky choice to make here regarding how they go about their chase. Should they worry about winning their last game and securing two points or should they go all out with the aim of improving their NRR too while securing a win?

Qualification to playoffs based on NRR on 14 points is still possible. If Knight Riders chase this total down in 16.5 overs or thereabouts, they will make sure that they end up above Delhi Capitals on NRR in the event the latter lose their last league fixture and also end up on 14 points. If KKR manage this, it will be a bridge too far for Sunrisers Hyderabad as well. Sunrisers, who are on 12 points, would need to chase down a target of 181 under seven overs to beat that NRR. The other team that can get to 14 points by winning their last game, Punjab Kings, would have to chase down a target of 181 under 11 overs. An improbable task for Kings as well. Royal Challengers Bangalore are the other team who can end up on 14 points by losing their game against Gujarat Titans, but their NRR is just too poor for Knight Riders to worry about.

Obviously, if Royal Challengers and Capitals both win their last league games, all this wouldn’t matter as Knight Riders will be knocked out

de Kock 140 (70) and Rahul 68 (51) now have the highest opening stand in all of IPL history as well. KKR need to chase 211 to win this game.

This is de Kock taking down Southee in the 19th over.

He's demolished all of KKR's gun bowlers.

vs Russell 42 off 15, SR 280
vs Southee 18 off 13, SR 213
vs Chakravarthy 25 off 11, SR 227
vs Narine 19 off 13, SR 146

The emotions spill out as de Kock gets to his century. His second in IPL cricket. Sublime innings from a player who can score against all kinds of bowling and all around the park.

It was a shock when he retired from Test cricket, in the same year the South Africa coach said he was a 150-Test player.

South Africa may have lost one of their brightest talents (he still plays limited-overs for them though) but the T20 franchise circuit is all the richer for it.

That is de Kock in the 16th over against Varun Chakravarthy. All power, starting with a slog sweep to throw the bowler off his length and then profiting from a long hop just as he planned

It appears the roles are set. Rahul will bat through the innings, so he's refused to take any risks. de Kock is going for sixes virtually every ball. And it makes sense given they have all their wickets still intact and only five overs to use them. LSG 122 for 0.

With de Kock past his fifty, and taking risks even against Sunil Narine - a reverse scoop into the third man boundary in the 13th over - our forecaster suggests Super Giants will end up with a total of 172 after 20 overs. They are currently 105 for 0, de Kock 57 off 41 and Rahul 47 off 38.

Potential to play around with the batting order too, bringing Evin Lewis and Marcus Stoinis up.

This is him shifting gears tonight. Tim Southee comes on. That means pace on the ball. And so he goes bang bang.

Only David Warner has scored 500 runs in a season more times (6) than the LSG captain

Well that was fun.

Varun C overstepped in the eighth over. He runs in for the free-hit ball and deliveres a bouncer that surprises the batter

A bemused de Kock looks at the square leg umpire asking for a signal of one for the over.

Rahul has barely hit a shot in anger. De Kock has tried a few times but its been a mixed bag for him too. Taking pace off the ball has been fairly useful in keeping the run-rate in check.

Sunil Narine doesn't always bowl in the powerplay, but the fact that he's on now indicates that KKR are valuing this first wicket.

KL Rahul and Quinton de Kock contribute a huge amount to this LSG team. Removing them early - especially with Krunal Pandya unavailable - will go a long way.

Shreyas Iyer brings on his other mystery spinner too. Varun Chakravarthy bowling the sixth over and, as much as this has been a tough season for him, he deceives Rahul easily enough with the one that goes away

The debutant, Tomar's, first act of the day is an unfortunate one. He drops Quinton de Kock on 12.

KKR's new-ball bowlers have been piling on the pressure, with their lines so close to the batter that neither the left-handed de Kock nor the right-handed Rahul could free their arms.

All that produces a false shot, de Kock going for a wild slog against a back of a length ball on off stump from Umesh Yadav. Gets a top edge. Flies to deep third man. Tomar has to dive forward, gets both hands to it, but it pops out.

The captain KL Rahul admitted that it was a cause for concern at the toss. Games can't be won in the first six overs, but they sure can in the last six, so good T20 teams want a solid middle order to handle the pressure - especially when they're chasing. It is perhaps because of this issue that Super Giants have a dismal record batting second in the tournament.

Had they qualified already, you'd think they might have tried chasing tonight, just to get used to it going into the playoffs.

Kolkata Knight Riders: 1 Venkatesh Iyer, 2 Abhijeet Tomar, 3 Shreyas Iyer (capt), 4 Nitish Rana, 5 Sam Billings (wk), 6 Rinku Singh, 7 Andre Russell, 8 Sunil Narine, 9 Umesh Yadav, 10 Tim Southee, 11 Varun Chakravarthy

Lucknow Super Giants: 1 Quinton de Kock (wk), 2 KL Rahul (capt), 3 Deepak Hooda, 4 Evin Lewis, 5 Marcus Stoinis, 6 Manan Vohra, 7 Jason Holder, 8 K Gowtham, 9 Avesh Khan, 10 Mohsin Khan, 11 Ravi Bishnoi

A new face each in both sides. KKR bring in Abhijeet Tomar, a 27-year old opener from Rajasthan, to replace the injured Ajinkya Rahane. Tomar was the highest run-getter for his state in the 2021-22 Vijay Hazare one-dayers.

Super Giants bring in Manan Vohra, a more familiar name in IPL circles. He's playing his first game for the franchise. KL Rahul says Krunal Pandya has a niggle so he goes out and they need to bring in two players to replace him - Evin Lewis to shore up the batting and K Gowtham to offer a spin-bowling option. That's meant Dushmantha Chameera has also been pushed into the sidelines.