Architect of their five-run win over Sunrisers Hyderabad, Kolkata Knight Riders spinner Varun Chakravarthy said the key was to challenge the batters on the longer side of the ground by bowling around their legs.
Chakravarthy was handed the last over with SRH needing nine runs, and he conceded just three, keeping KKR’s slim playoff hopes alive.
“Definitely there was a lot of pressure… The only thing (captain) Nitish (Rana) was telling me was to challenge them on the longer end, so that was our basic plan. We wanted to keep it simple,” Chakravarthy said at the post-match interaction here.
Chasing 172, SRH lost three wickets inside the powerplay, but skipper Aiden Markram and their in-form batter Heinrich Klaasen kept them in the hunt with a 70-run stand.
But Shardul Thakur (2/23) and Vaibhav Arora (2/32) brilliantly set it up for KKR with their vital wickets in the back end.
Having leaked 12 off his first over, Chakravarthy was introduced after the departure of Klaasen, in a Rana masterstroke.
In the last over the duo of Abdul Samad and Bhuvneshwar Kumar took singles before the former got out while going for a big hit.
The equation was down to seven from three balls as Chakravarthy bowled two dot balls to seal the issue in his team’s favour.
“I just wanted to challenge the batters on longer side (of the ground) and bowl in the legs, if they could hit me well, then fine,” he said.
“My heartbeat was touching 200 in the last over… The ball was slipping a lot and my best bet was longer side, that was my only hope.
“Last year I was bowling around 85kmph, I was trying out many things and I realised that I needed to work on my revolutions, and I did work on it.”
KKR need to win all their remaining four matches to make the playoffs.
“It’s a very important win for us, it’s all do-or-die matches for us from here on so we have to keep winning. But to win a match away is very important, so it was a very good win,” he said.
KKR will face Punjab Kings at home on Monday.