ADKR battles hard but falls short against GG in their final home clash | ADKR vs GG Match Review

ADKR 123/7 in 20 Overs [David Willey 41(29), Alishan Sharafu 21*(13); Chris Jordan 2/20 in 4 Overs] lost to GG 124/3 in 17.5 Overs [Gerhard Erasmus 47(51), Tom Curran 38*(35); David Willey 2/17 in 4 Overs] by 7 wickets

The Abu Dhabi Knight Riders faced off against the Gulf Giants in their final home game at the wonderful Sheikh Zayed Stadium in Abu Dhabi. This game promised to be a great contest between two teams who had a must-win game ahead of them. With a win required in both their remaining games, ADKR looked to take the field with intent and aimed to pick up the important win. The fans were eager to cheer their favourite knights one last time this season in Abu Dhabi. 

As the story has been throughout the season, ADKR were put into bat first as they aimed to start positively and play with aggressive intent. The pitch had a lot of assistance for the seamers and offered quite a bit of swing with the new ball. ADKR were rocked early as both their openers were dismissed cheaply. The GG bowlers put immense pressure on the Knight Riders as they allowed no batter to settle and continued to bowl tight lines. ADKR were in big trouble as the innings needed a big rescue and that’s exactly when David Willey stepped up. Promoted up the order, Willey anchored the innings beautifully while he played powerful shots to help ADKR get back on track. Despite Willey’s great innings, wickets kept falling at the other end which led to Willey succumbing to playing the big shot. ADKR received another late boost with young Alishan Sharafu playing a cameo of 23 off just 11 balls as ADKR fought their way through to a total of 123. The onus was now upon the bowlers to extract as much help from the pitch and help ADKR defend the target. 

The ADKR bowlers aimed to pick up early wickets and extract as much swing as possible from the pitch in order to make sure they are using the conditions well. David Willey stood up with the ball as well in this game as he picked consecutive wickets of two balls and rattled the Giants. Early wickets helped ADKR pick up the momentum and they looked to keep control of the game with them.  However, a strong partnership between Gerhard Erasmus and Tom Curran helped GG come back into the game. ADKR bowlers tried their level best to take the game deep and kept fighting right till the end, yet the total didn’t prove to be enough. Gulf Giants won the game by 7 wickets and handed ADKR a tough loss. The Knight Riders will be proud of the fight they’ve shown and will be looking to turn up in their next game and win it in order to stay alive in the race to the playoffs. ADKR will assess their performance and will be aiming to make a strong comeback in their next game.