IPL playoff -Eliminator (Night match), Sharjah, UAE. Oct 11, 2021.

After Sunil Narain's magic, Kolkata(KKR) sent off Bangalore(RCB) with the help of experienced Shakib and Morgan. 

Need 7 in the last over. The last pair of expert batsmen at the crease. Eoin Morgan, on the other end, has not more runs on his bat in the IPL 2021. Shakib Al Hasan understood that he has to take responsibility. He erased all fears of the team with a great scoop shot boundary in Dan Christian's slower. In the next three balls, Kolkata Knight Riders reached the winning target in singles. The chapter of Virat Kohli's leadership in the IPL ended without a trophy.
Kolkata won the eliminator match by 4 wickets in a thrilling match on Monday. With a slightly slower wicket in Sharjah, they overcame Bangalore's 136 with two balls to spare.

After bowling 24 balls in 4 overs and giving away only 24 runs in tight overs of no extra runs, Shakib came down to batting at eight and played the short but important innings of 9 runs off 8 balls.
The hero of the match is another spinning all-rounder Sunil Narine. He took 4 wickets for 21 runs in great bowling. Later while batting, When the team came down to five wickets down and under huge pressure and he played the valuable innings of 28 runs off 15 balls with 3 sixes.

Even after Narine's innings, Kolkata came under pressure at the end. Mohammad Siraj returned Narine and Dinesh Karthik in three balls. Shakib went to the wicket at that time, Kolkata needed 13 off 14 balls.
Shakib took the single with the first ball he faced. Morgan played the next ball dot.
In the 19th over, Shakib played two balls of George Garton and took two singles. Morgan did play two dot balls in that over.
In the 20th over, Shakib moved away from the off-side of Christian's first ball and hit a boundary with a fine scoop on a short fine leg. The match then came in the hands of Kolkata's grasp. Shakib finished the match with a single in the fourth ball.

The beginning of the match was also in Shakib's hands. After winning the toss and choosing to bat, Virat Kohli said, "The wicket is great for batting." Morgan handed over the ball to Shakib in the first over of the match. In the first three balls, he conceded three singles. Then Shakib bowled the next two dot balls to Kohli. Sixth ball, Kohli went for a legside pull shot to a boundary as Shakib errs the line. 7 runs came from the 1st over. 

In the power play, Bangalore made 53 runs for 1 wicket.
Shakib returned to bowling immediately after the power play. In the spell of three overs, he gave only four runs in the first two overs. The last over was a little costly, 9 runs came off that over as Maxwell hit one boundary.

Srikar Bharat could not play the second ball of the seventh over properly. Goes up like a catch, but the ball touches the ground before the long-on fielder runs. Lucky Ferguson's throw in the next ball hit the stumps but Kohli escaped narrowly being run out.

However, after the wicket of Devdut Parikal in the sixth over, the pace of Bangalore's run started to decrease. After the fifth over, Bangalore got the next boundary in the 11th over. Glenn Maxwell made a reverse sweep of Shakib to a boundary. That was Shakib's last over, he gave 9 runs in the over. However, he bowled very tightly in the middle 2 overs, finally giving up 24 runs in 4 overs.

Narain-Magic, of course, started even before that. He has realized the benefit of the pressure created by Shakib-Varun in all the great deliveries. First Srikar Bharat was his victim, then he came back at 13th over to bowl Kohli out who scored the highest 39 runs for Bangalore. He did not allow either Maxwell or de Villiers to change gears. 
Kolkata got off to a positive start with Shubman Gill and Venkatesh Iyer chasing runs. 48 runs in the first 6 overs. Gill scored 29 runs off 16 balls. After Rahul Tripathi was lbw off Yuzbendra Chahal in the seventh over, Iyer and Nitish Rana pulled Kolkata off for 26 runs partnership off 24 balls. Even after getting a life, Iyer had to return with 27 runs from 30 balls. With Iyer's wicket, Bangalore pacer Hershel Patel has become the highest wicket-taker in a single IPL season jointly with Dwayne Bravo with 32 wickets.

Narain eased the pressure created at that time by hitting Christian 3 sixes. At that time, the victory of Kolkata seemed to be just a matter of time. Rana, who had earlier scored 23 off 25 balls, was dismissed by Chahal. After that, Mohammad Siraj gave hope to Bangalore again by getting Narine and Dinesh Karthik out within 3 balls. He gave 3 runs in that over, George Garton gave 5 in the next over.

However, Shakib's scoop shot in the first ball of the last over confirmed that today is not the day for Bangalore. In the end, Narain, Shakib made it KKR's day.

Kolkata will face Delhi Capitals in the battle to the final on Wednesday. The winning team will play the title match against Chennai Super Kings on Friday.