I take responsibility for the defeat, KKR team could not score 112 runs, captain Rahane said- I myself lost the wicket by playing the wrong shot..

Kolkata Knight Riders captain Ajinkya Rahane took responsibility for the defeat and said that we batted very poorly. KKR team failed to chase the target of 112 runs against Punjab Kings. After being all out for 111 runs, Punjab wrapped up KKR's innings for 95 runs and made the record of successfully defending the smallest target in IPL. After restricting Punjab Kings to 111 runs in 15.3 overs, KKR was moving towards an easy victory by scoring 60 runs for two wickets in seven overs but after this, Chahal shook the middle order of KKR and gave Punjab a thrilling victory. KKR team was all out for 95 runs in 15.1 overs. This is only the fifth time in IPL when both the teams were all out. After losing the match, Ajinkya Rahane said, 'I take responsibility for this defeat, I played the wrong shot.' Rahane was out LBW on Yuzvendra Chahal's ball but his decision of not taking a review against the on-field umpire's decision proved costly. In the replay, the ball was seen going outside the off stump. Rahane said that he was not completely sure that the ball would go outside the wicket. With this, Punjab Kings made the record of successfully defending the lowest score in IPL. Earlier, the lowest score was defended by Chennai Super Kings by scoring 116 runs against Kings XI Punjab in 2009.

He said, 'That ball would have missed the wicket, but everything started from there. No one wanted to take any risk at that time. I was not sure, so decided not to take a review.' As soon as Rahane was out, KKR's innings faltered and the team lost the last eight wickets within 33 runs. Rahane blamed the defeat on poor batting and said, 'The pitch was not easy but the target of 111 runs could have been easily achieved. As a batting unit, we performed very poorly.'

For Punjab, Marco Jansen also took three wickets while Arshdeep, Xavier Bartlett, and Glenn Maxwell got one success each. For KKR, Angkrish Raghuvanshi played an innings of 37 runs in 28 balls and shared a 55-run partnership for the third wicket with captain Ajinkya Rahane (17) to lay the foundation for victory, but after the partnership broke, the team lost the last seven wickets within 23 runs. Earlier, Punjab Kings were all out for 111 in 15.3 overs from 39 runs without loss, in which Harshit Rana took three wickets for 25 runs while Varun Chakraborty and Sunil Narayan took two wickets each.

According to Rahane, 'Our bowlers performed very well against a strong batting unit like Punjab. We showed carelessness in batting and the whole team should take responsibility for it.'

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