Flying high on the back of their initial success in the ongoing Indian Premier League, Kolkata Knight Riders suffered their first defeat of the tournament on Monday night against Chennai Super Kings at MA Chidambaram Stadium. KKR had entered the game on the back of three straight victories, but couldn’t overcome defending champions Chennai Super Kings. 

Returning to their home ground, CSK bowlers Ravindra Jadeja and Tushar Deshpande stepped up, chipping in with three crucial wickets each to dismantle KKR’s robust batting attack. CSK restricted KKR to 137-9 as they (CSK) chased down the total with (14) balls to spare. KKR skipper Shreyas Iyer, who was the top-scorer with (34) off (32), highlighted team’s loopholes. 

"I personally feel we fell short in terms of assessing the wicket. Phenomenal start in the powerplay but after that, we couldn't capitalise on that start, we lost consecutive wickets. We weren't able to assess the conditions as quickly as possible because It completely changed after the powerplay and scoring runs off this wicket wasn't easy,” said Iyer during the post-match presentation.

"Obviously, they know conditions pretty well and they bowled according to their plan. It was a bit tacky, especially even when the hard-hitters came in, it wasn't easy for them to go right from the first ball. Personally, I felt It changed tremendously after the powerplay. We were trying to construct our innings, it didn't go according to the plan. We’ll introspect and come forward,” Iyer said. 

"We were in a comfortable place at the beginning, we thought 160-170 would be a great score on this wicket. Even when they played against RCB, the conditions were fairly similar. So that was our plan but when you lose consecutive wickets, it's difficult to carry forward momentum," Iyer said.