By Prakash Nair 
Ahmedabad, April 17: They won the toss. They chose to bat. And for about three deliveries, it looked like maybe, just maybe, this would be the night Kolkata Knight Riders finally got their act together.
Then Ajinkya Rahane got out on the first ball, and you realised, no. Not tonight either.
KKR finished on 180 all out. Gujarat Titans need 181 to win. The second innings is underway. But before we get there, let us talk about what happened when KKR batted, because it was the kind of innings that makes you feel genuinely conflicted. There were passages of play that were excellent. There was one batter who was absolutely brilliant. And then there was the same old KKR chaos bookending all of it, the collapses, the soft dismissals, the feeling that this team simply cannot get all eleven players to show up in the same match.
First Ball, First Wicket, Same Old Story
Mohammed Siraj has been bowling beautifully this season. He gets the ball to move, he bowls a full length, and he targets the top of off stump with the kind of discipline that makes even good batters look uncertain. Tonight, he needed exactly one delivery to dismiss the KKR captain.
Rahane went first ball. The intent was there, the execution was not. Siraj got the wicket and KKR’s troubles began immediately.
First. Ball. Gone.
The Narendra Modi Stadium crowd, already buzzing, got even louder. Rahane, head down, walking back before the scoreboard had even updated. A golden duck for the captain. Again. The kind of dismissal that sends a shockwave through the dressing room before the players on the balcony have had time to react.
It got messier from there. After the powerplay, KKR were 37 for 3. Seifert and Raghuvanshi had followed Rahane back to the pavilion, and Cameron Green was at the crease looking uncertain against the GT seamers who were bowling just outside off stump and inviting him to drive.
Tim Seifert, brought in specifically to fix the opening problem that Finn Allen could not solve, came and went without making an impact. Angkrish Raghuvanshi, the one batter who has genuinely been carrying this batting lineup all season, was caught by Jos Buttler off Kagiso Rabada for just 8. Caught behind for 8. On a night when KKR desperately needed him to bat deep, he was gone inside two overs.
Three down, 37 on the board, powerplay done. If you were watching this and you have seen KKR play even twice this season, none of it surprised you. That is perhaps the saddest part.
Then Cameron Green Remembered Who He Is
This is the part of the KKR innings that deserves proper attention, because it was genuinely impressive and it would be unfair to reduce it to a footnote.
Green and Rovman Powell stopped the rot. They batted with patience and purpose in the middle overs, building a partnership that steadied a KKR innings that had looked like it might not reach 120. Powell was hitting cleanly, finding gaps, rotating strike. Green was initially cautious, playing himself in carefully, looking for the right ball to attack rather than forcing the issue.
Then Powell got out and something clicked in Cameron Green.
He smashed Rashid Khan for 16 in a single over. The hundred came up for KKR. And Green just kept going, racing to 75 off 44 balls, batting with the kind of controlled aggression that reminded everyone in that stadium why KKR invested so heavily in him.
Honestly? That innings was a relief to watch. Not just for KKR fans, but for anyone who follows cricket and has watched this genuinely talented player have a miserable first few weeks of the season. The golden duck against CSK. The scratchy cameos. The whispers about whether he was worth the money. Tonight, for a sustained chunk of this innings, Green made those questions look silly.
He hit with timing, with power, with intent. He took on Rashid Khan, which very few batters in world cricket do successfully, and he did it with confidence. He was the reason KKR were still in this game heading into the final five overs.
The Death Overs Did Not Deliver
Here is where it unravelled again, quietly but decisively.
KKR had a platform. Green was set. Rinku Singh was in the middle. The ground has a fast outfield. 200 was not just possible, it felt like the minimum expectation with ten overs to go and a settled batter at the crease.
But GT’s bowlers had other ideas. Prasidh Krishna came back and bowled the death the way he has been bowling it all season, tight, bouncy, difficult to get away. Wickets kept falling at the wrong time. The lower order came and went. Green eventually had to watch from the other end as his partners could not stay with him long enough to push the total past 180.
Rinku got some runs. He always gets some runs. But Rinku at number seven with not enough batting left around him is not the Rinku who is going to rescue an innings. He needs partners, and tonight he did not have them.
KKR were all out. 180. Every wicket gone, overs still remaining. That is always a bad sign, always suggests the tail flinched under pressure when they needed to hold firm just a little longer.
How the Innings Actually Looked, Player by Player
Tim Seifert came in to solve the opening problem. Did not solve it.
Sunil Narine was sent up the order looking for early runs. Did not provide them.
Ajinkya Rahane was out on the first ball for the second time in three games. The questions about his captaincy are going to get very loud very soon.
Cameron Green scored 75 off 44 balls and was the best thing about KKR’s entire innings by a significant distance. Finally. He is in this team for a reason and tonight he showed it.
Angkrish Raghuvanshi had one of his rare quiet nights, dismissed for 8 by Rabada. He has been carrying this lineup for weeks. He was allowed one off day.
Rovman Powell contributed a useful partnership with Green in the middle overs and gave KKR momentum before his dismissal ended that phase.
Rinku Singh tried in the death. Got some runs. Was not enough on his own, which he never is.
Ramandeep Singh, Anukul Roy, Vaibhav Arora, Kartik Tyagi all came and went without adding the kind of late runs that might have pushed this total to something truly threatening.
GT’s bowling figures:
Siraj struck in the very first over, Rabada was excellent in the powerplay, Prasidh was clinical in the death as always. Rashid got hit hard by Green for one over but kept his composure. As a bowling unit, Gujarat did their job.
Now GT Need 181
Shubman Gill. Jos Buttler. Sai Sudharsan. Their own ground. A crowd of over 100,000 people was behind them.
The average first-innings score at this ground is around 178 to 180. So, KKR have posted roughly what this pitch was expected to produce. It is not a bad total. Teams have defended 180 here. It is absolutely doable with disciplined bowling and early wickets.
But this GT batting lineup has been in form. Gill is averaging over 50 this IPL. Buttler is timing it cleanly. And the crowd, already hostile to KKR tonight, will only grow louder when the home team starts batting.
KKR’s bowlers need something special. Chakravarthy has been wicketless all tournament. Narine has three scalps in six games. The burden is going to fall on Arora and Tyagi again, and they have been good this season, genuinely impressive at times. But defending 180 against this batting lineup is a serious ask.
One thing is certain. Cameron Green’s 75 gave KKR a total worth defending. Whether their bowlers can do something with it, that is the whole question of the rest of this evening.
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- Prakash Nair
- Prakash Nair
- Prakash Nair
- Prakash Nair
