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In the 13th match of IPL 2023, Kolkata Knight Riders defeated Gujarat Titans by three wickets to get their second consecutive win in the tournament. At the same time, Gujarat had to face defeat for the first time in this tournament. In this match all the limits of excitement were crossed. First Vijay Shankar then Venkatesh Iyer turned the match.Later Rashid Khan took Gujarat to the threshold of victory with a hat-trick,but in the end Rinku Singh snatched the victory from the jaws of Gujarat.
Batting after winning the toss, Gujarat scored 204 runs losing four wickets in 20 overs at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad.For Gujarat,Vijay Shankar scored an unbeaten 63, Sai Sudarshan scored 53 and Shubman Gill scored 39 runs. At the same time,Sunil Narine took three wickets and Suyash Sharma took one wicket for Kolkata. In response, Kolkata scored 207 runs losing seven wickets in 20 overs and won the match. For Kolkata, Venkatesh Iyer scored 83, Nitish Rana scored 45 and Rinku Singh scored 48 not out. This is the first time in IPL history that a team won by hitting 5 sixes in the last 5 balls.
Kolkata had to score 29 runs in the last over.Umesh Yadav took a single on the first ball of the 20th over. After this, Rinku Singh made the team win by hitting 5 consecutive sixes.
Who is Rinku Singh?Born on October 12,1997 in Aligarh, UP, Rinku Singh’s cricket journey has not been that easy.Rinku Singh is at number three among 5 siblings. His father used to work in gas cylinder delivery.In such a situation,due to the financial condition of the family not being good, Rinku decided to become a cricketer.Rinku’s hard work paid off when in the year 2014, he got a chance to debut in List-A and T20 cricket from Uttar Pradesh.
Rinku Singh, Player of the Match:Had the belief that I can do it. Last year I was in a similar situation in Lucknow. Had the belief back then too. Didn’t think too much out there. Those shots just happened one after the other.
Nitin Rana, Kolkata Knight Riders Captain:We had belief because Rinku had done something similar last year, although we did not win.After the second six, we started to believe more because Yash Dayal was also not executing well.You win one out of a hundred matches this way. We were bowling well for 18 overs but did not bowl well towards the end.
Venkatesh Iyer:It was a nail-biting finish, extremely happy that we won the game. Our coach has always said that we can score 200 on any given day. Honestly,the wicket was quite good to bat and I was just trying to execute my plans.When the target is 200,you can’t have silent overs.Me and Nitish had a good partnership.Unfortunately, somewhere we lost our way,but Lord Rinku saved the day. To be honest, we still believed that we could win.
