“I prepared myself, they told me beforehand that I would be coming in,” said Vaibhav Arora after delivering a game-changing spell for Kolkata Knight Riders against Sunrisers Hyderabad in Match 15 of IPL 2025.
I saw what the ball was doing, and how much it was swinging. In the fifth-sixth over, the ball does not swing, so I deployed cutters and yorkers... we plan in meetings on what to bowl to which batter, and the lines and lengths get adjusted accordingly.
Coming in as an Impact Substitute, Arora (3-29) seized the moment and triggered a top-order collapse for the Sunrisers, who never recovered from the early blows. His spell, combined with Varun Chakravarthy’s 3-22, ensured an 80-run win for KKR at Eden Gardens — a dominant performance in a rematch of the 2024 final.
Earlier, asked to bat first, Kolkata posted a commanding 200/6 thanks to a quick-fire 60 off 29 balls from Venkatesh Iyer and a composed 50 from Angkrish Raghuvanshi.
The innings had wobbled early after the dismissals of Quinton de Kock (1) and Sunil Narine (7), but Ajinkya Rahane (38) and Raghuvanshi steadied the ship before the late assault by Iyer and Rinku Singh (32 not out off 17).
This game was really important for us, and winning with margin – that was crucial. When we lost two wickets, the discussion was about consolidating and then, if we had wickets in hand after 11-12 overs, the lower order could score as many as possible. We thought 170-180 would be a good total, so getting to 200 was a bonus.
In response, Sunrisers were rocked early — Travis Head fell to Arora on the second ball of the innings, followed by Abhishek Sharma and Ishan Kishan for two runs each, reducing them to 9/3. Only Heinrich Klaasen (33) and Kamindu Mendis (27) offered brief resistance, but the disciplined KKR attack, also led by Andre Russell (2-13), wrapped things up in 16.4 overs.
Brief Scores:
Kolkata Knight Riders 200/6 in 20 overs (Venkatesh Iyer 60, Angkrish Raghuvanshi 50; Zeeshan Ansari 1-25, Mohammed Shami 1-29)
Sunrisers Hyderabad 120 all out in 16.4 overs (Heinrich Klaasen 33, Kamindu Mendis 27; Varun Chakravarthy 3-22, Vaibhav Arora 3-29)
Result: Kolkata Knight Riders won by 80 runs.
