Kolkata: Young Riyan Parag (47, 31b, 5×4, 2×6) and seamer Jofra Archer (27 n o, 12b, 2×4, 2×6 ) played some brilliant cricket in the last five overs as Rajasthan Royals (RR) pulled off a memorable three-wicket victory against Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) in an IPL encounter here at Eden Gardens Thursday.
Needing, 18 runs from the last two overs, Royals were in a spot of bother with Parag getting dismissed being hit-wicket, but Archer hit Prasidh Krishna (1/43) for a four and a six off successive deliveries to pull off the win.
Earlier, under-fire skipper Dinesh Karthik (97 n o, 50b, 7×4, 9×6) silenced his critics with a career-best unbeaten knock as KKR recovered from an atrocious start to post a competitive 175/6.
Under pressure to perform after a string of five straight defeats, the World Cup-bound Karthik promoted himself to No. 4, shrugging off criticism as KKR hit top gear in the back end of the innings, scoring 126 from the last 10 overs and 75 off the last five overs.
On a day their impact player Andre Russell (14) looked lacklustre, in which he was dropped twice, it was a one-man show from Karthik who went berserk against the likes of Jaydev Unadkat (1/50) and Shreyas Gopal (1/31).
Karthik seized the momentum in the 11th over when he hit Gopal for a six followed by three boundaries in an over that yielded 25 runs and KKR did not look back since then.
Karthik completed his fifty from 35 balls and smashed Archer (0/28) for successive sixes in the penultimate over before bettering his previous best of 86 when he went berserk against Unadkat by hitting him for two sixes and one four in the final over.
Unadkat proved to be most expensive of the lot as he undid all the good work done by Varun Aaron (2/20) at the start of the innings. Put in to bat, KKR were at 32/2 in powerplay overs against an all out pace attack from Rajasthan Royals.
Playing his only second match this season, Aaron extracted pace and swing from the fast-paced Eden track and removed both the openers Chris Lynn (0) and Shubman Gill (14) cheaply.
Archer capped a superb powerplay for Royals with another maiden as the dispirited KKR found themselves going nowhere and seemed to be losing the plot before skipper Karthik revived them at the back end of the innings.
Brief scores: Kolkata Knight Riders 175/6 (Dinesh Karthik 97 n o, Varun Aaron 2/20) lost to Rajasthan Royals 177/7 (Riyan Parag 47, Ajinkya Rahane 34; Piyush Chawla 3/20) by three wickets.