Rajasthan Royals are well on course for the IPL 2024 playoffs. After their two wicket win over Kolkata Knight Riders on Tuesday, Rajasthan Royals now have 12 points. If no major upset in the next couple of games, RR might well be the first team to enter the playoffs. While there were two centurions in the match in KKR's Sunil Narine and RR's Jos Buttler, there was one particular fielding effort by Avesh Khan that is now the talk of the town.
It happened in the fourth over of the KKR innings when Avesh Khan outstretched arm caught hold of a shot from Phil Salt. The improbability of the catch made it more interesting. After the catch, Avesh Khan gestured towards Sanju Samson and said something like: "Main catch lunga (I will take the catch)". Later, he celebrated with Sanju Samson gloves.
For the unversed, Avesh Khan was absolutely livid with Sanju Samson during RR's match against Punjab Kings last Saturday for a dropped catch. In the 19th over of PBKS innings, Samson did not pay heed to Avesh Khan's call as he charged to take a catch of Ashutosh Sharma. Though Avesh was closer, Samson went ahead and dropped the catch. Avesh Khan was clearly frustrated with the call. It was called a 'disaster' on social media.
Talking about the match, Rajasthan Royals pulled off the Indian Premier League's biggest run chase to beat Kolkata Knight Riders by two wickets on Tuesday.
Asked to bat first, KKR rode on Sunil Narine's 56-ball 109 to post 223/6 in the allotted 20 overs. In reply, RR were in all sorts of trouble at one stage but Jos Buttler blasted his way to an unbeaten 60-ball 107, as the visitors completed the chase in the last ball of the match.
After his team was asked to bat first on a fresh pitch, Narine blazed away to a 49-ball 100 to lead KKR's charge in this top-of-the-table clash at Eden Gardens. It was a one-man show from KKR as Narine (109 off 56) batted till the 18th over, first stitching 85 runs with Angkrish Raghuvanshi (30) and then adding 51 runs with Andre Russell (13). However, Buttler had other ideas as he did the job for RR from an extremely difficult position.
With PTI inputs