Smith and Raina lift Lions to No. 2

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Gujarat Lions 125 for 4 (Raina 53*, Finch 26) beat Kolkata Knight Riders 124 for 8 (Yusuf 36, Smith 4-8) by six wicketsScorecard and ball-by-ball details

Dwayne Smith used a green Kanpur pitch as his ally to return figures of 4 for 8, setting up Gujarat Lions’ six-wicket win against Kolkata Knight Riders. Lions’ restricted Knight Riders to 124, and then overhauled the target with 39 balls to spare. The win not only vaulted them to No. 2 on the points table, but also lifted their net run-rate from -0.747 to -0.479, intensifying the race for the playoffs.

Knight Riders, sent in to bat, started solidly before Gautam Gambhir was involved in another run-out, in the fourth over. With Gambhir and Robin Uthappa stranded mid-pitch, Shadab Jakati, replacing Shivil Kaushik, fired an accurate throw at the striker’s end after an acrobatic stop at midwicket.

Smith then extracted enough bounce and lateral movement to have Knight Riders’ batsmen poking outside off stump. Uthappa and Manish Pandey steered catches behind the wicket, while Piyush Chawla, promoted to No. 4 as a pinch hitter, was hustled by a skiddy delivery that crept past his tentative waft. A short …

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