The Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) defeated the Punjab Kings (PBKS) by just 111 runs on Tuesday in their IPL 2025 match at the Maharaja Yadavindra Singh International Cricket Stadium in Mullanpur thanks to a brilliant bowling display. In the meantime, mystery spinner Varun Chakravarthy stole the show by dismissing Glenn Maxwell and Josh Inglis, both Australians, with his remarkable wrong’un variety in consecutive overs.
Shreyas Iyer, the captain of the home team, chose to bat first after winning the toss. Prabhsimran Singh and Priyansh Arya, the openers, got off to a strong start, scoring 39 runs in just 3.1 overs. Prabhsimran contributed thirty runs, and Arya looked in fine form, hitting twenty-two off twelve balls. But KKR’s bowlers, especially Rana, who removed both Arya and Iyer in a single period with a double-wicket over, caused a collapse.
Varun Chakravarthy first victim was Inglis, who was bowled by a wrong’un while attempting a slog sweep in his debut game, utterly misjudging it.
Inglis finished his six-ball stint with just two runs.
Additionally, the KKR captain hit Maxwell with another sly delivery in the tenth over, a wrong’un that rattled the stumps after going through bat and pad. Only seven runs from ten balls were contributed by Maxwell, who has now lost to Varun four times in the IPL.
Varun Chakaravarthy, with a touch of magic, completely deceives Maxwell!
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The 33-year-old gave Harshit credit for taking early wickets and later stated that the pitch was better suited for 180 than 110. He concluded with scores of 2 for 21.
It is clearly not a 110 wicket, but rather a 180 wicket, and I felt fantastic bowling today. Although Harshit Rana deserves all the praise for his bowling performance in the initial stint, their openers got off to a strong start. I’m glad to be on the same side as Sunil Narine, and I couldn’t be happier playing with him.
My back-of-the-hand leg spin has been improving, and today I tried both the front and back of the hand, and it turned out fairly nicely. It is 190 wickets, and the ball was skidding a lot as I bowled my third and fourth overs. He informed the announcers during the mid-innings break that there was some dew and that the ground crew was working to get rid of it.
To make matters worse for PBKS, Sunil Narine quickly dismissed impact substitutes Marco Jansen and Suryansh Shedge, both of whom fell while attempting to tackle his variations. On his KKR debut, Anrich Nortje made an impression as well by getting rid of Nehal Wadhera, and Vaibhav Arora added a wicket by getting rid of Shashank Singh. As a result of the collapse, PBKS was dismissed in only 15.3 overs, their second-worst IPL total versus KKR and fourth-lowest overall.
India
