The journey of two-time champions Kolkata Knight Riders, participating in IPL 2023 under the captaincy of Nitish Rana, ended with a defeat against Lucknow at Eden Gardens on Saturday. Chasing a target of 177 for the win, KKR lost the match by a margin of just 1 run. Rinku Singh’s unbeaten fiery innings of 67 runs in 33 balls turned the tide. With the defeat, KKR’s playoff hopes also ended. Kolkata could win 6 out of 14 matches and lost 8 matches. She stood seventh in the points table.
Will return next season as a better team
KKR captain Nitish Rana looked dejected after losing by a margin of one run. He said after losing the match, the match was great but the result did not go in our favor. We have a lot of positive aspects about this season. There are also a lot of things for improvement, I hope that next season we will improve on those aspects and come as a better team.
Disappointed with the loss, the team had the ability to reach the playoffs
With a lot of close matches this season, what aspects do you talk about in the dressing room? Responding to this, Nitish said, “If you want to compete in the best league in the world and be in the top 4, then you have to do well in all three aspects of the game and you have to win good matches consistently.” Feeling bad as captain because our team had the potential to finish in the top four, unfortunately we couldn’t do it. If we work on our mistakes next season, next season will be better.
Rinku Singh can do anything
Describing Rinku Singh as the most positive aspect of the season for KKR, Nitish said, “If I have held the mic 14 times in the season, I have talked about Rinku Singh as many times and I am personally very happy for him because He has worked very hard for that as the season has gone on. We are very close, so I know how hard she has worked for this. I have no words to say about that. The whole country knows what he has done and in such a situation, if he can bat like this, then he can do anything.