Kolkata Knight Riders

Robin Uthappa- (7/10)

Manish Pandey-(7/10)

Pandey was Kolkata’s best player in the last match against the Mumbai Indians on Sunday and he continued his rich vein of form scoring 25* off 16 balls to see Kolkata home. He also showed his abilities in the field by latching onto a catch to dismiss the dangerous David Miller at a time when KKR were dropping catches right left and centre.

The Baroda bomber has been in snooze mode in IPL 2017, so far and once again, his services weren’t required with either bat or ball. 

Suryakumar Yadav- (6/10)

After his best bowling performance this season, (1/19), Narine shocked the vast majority of the Eden Gardens’ crowd when he opened the batting with Gautam Gambhir and went after the bowling from the onset. He did his job by giving Kolkata the perfect start smashing 37 off 18 balls, before being caught by Axar Patel off the bowling of Varun Aaron in the 6th over.

Colin de Grandhomme- (7/10)

Chris Woakes-(7/10)

The English all-rounder wasn’t required to bat but did well with the ball during the Punjab innings as he scalped the wickets of Mohit Sharma and Varun Aaron, while also holding onto Wriddhiman Saha’s catch off the bowling of Umesh Yadav.

Though Chawla may have gone for 12 runs an over in his three overs, he did manage to get the important first wicket of Manan Vohra in the 6th over, which help the Knight Riders pull things back after Kings XI Punjab’s flying start.

Trent Boult- (5/10)

Umesh Yadav - (8/10)

It’s almost as if he’d never been away! Yadav continued from where he left off against Australia as he announced his arrival in the IPL with a typical spell of fast bowling. He rocked the Punjab batting lineup with three wickets in one over, before finishing with figures of 4/33 in his allotted four. Now, that’s how you make a comeback! 

Hashim Amla - (7/10)

For the third game running, the South African got off to a good start but yet again was unable to build on it. He played the supporting role with both Vohra and Maxwell, but when it came to upping the run rate, the 34-year-old disappointed yet again.

Like his opening partner, Vohra has been able to see off the new ball scoring 14, 34, and 28 respectively in his three games so far. But, yet again, failed to see it through as he suffered a rush of blood to the head and tried to attack Chawla in his very first over.

The Punjab captain came out swinging after Vohra’s dismissal and was hitting the ball as cleanly as we have seen in the tournament so far. But he wasn’t able to recreate his heroics from the first two games as he nicked a Umesh Yadav delivery to the keeper. Credit to him for actually walking off before the umpire gave his decision.

David Miller - (6/10)

Wriddhiman Saha - (6/10)

His partnership with Miller looked troublesome for KKR as the visitors looked well set to cross the 200-run mark. It was just unfortunate for Punjab’s sake that Saha lost his wicket on the very next ball after Miller had been dismissed. Had he stayed there, the target could have been a competitive one.

It just wasn’t Patel’s day! Not only did he concede at 9 runs per over, he was the only player who was unlucky enough to be caught by the ever-unreliable Sunil Narine.

Marcus Stoinis - (4/10)

Mohit Sharma - (3/10)

A day to forget for the Punjab pacer who was completely ineffective with the ball conceding 30 runs in three overs. A part of the four-man pace attack, he was just not able to get the breakthrough that his team was desperate for. 

Playing his first game of the season, the Indian pacer was not as bad as the rest. In fact, he had the best economy in the Punjab team but when you are seen as one of the strike bowlers of your team, keeping the economy down is not what gets you a Rs. 2 crore contract.

Sandeep Sharma - (6/10)

Varun Aaron - (5/10)

In an attempt to curb the flow of runs, Maxwell handed the ball to Aaron. The move paid off as the partnership was broken on the fourth ball of his first over but it came at a cost with Narine scoring 16 runs off the first three balls. He eventually finished with an economy of 11.50.