WATCH: Dinesh Karthik fails to stump Faf du Plessis out; costs KKR big in IPL 2021 final

Dinesh Karthik is usually a very reliable presence behind the sticks. He is constantly communicating with the bowlers, as to how they can approach a given batter and his inputs are often key. However, in the grand finale of the Indian Premier League’s 2021 edition, he made an early error behind the stumps that might have cost Kolkata too many runs.

In the third over of the game, Shakib Al Hasan bowled a beautiful arm-delivery, that had fair amount of loop in the air. Faf du Plessis was beaten in the air by the turn and flight, and played his shot a bit too early. He was attempting to clear his back leg and loft it over covers and missed the ball completely.

Dinesh Karthik behind the stumps, had an opportunity to stump the South African batter, but the 36-year-old was a little too late to react. Chennai Super Kings had only scored 9 runs until then, and Du Plessis was on 2. CSK have been dependent on their opening pair heavily, with the duo scoring over 50% of their runs. This missed opportunity gave them a chance to add their 7th partnership of 50 or more on a day of days.

Here’s that missed opportunity from Dinesh Karthik, that proved to be costly for KKR.

Dinesh Karthik has not been having the best of times behind the wickets, having missed some crucial opportunities in the last 4 games for the Knight Riders. However, the brilliance of those men in purple has negated pretty much every silly individual error. Having won the title twice before in 2012 and 2014 while chasing the target, they decided to do the same once again.

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After the missed opportunity, CSK managed to put further pressure on KKR with some stellar cricketing shots. Ruturaj Gaikwad went past KL Rahul in the Orange Cap race while adding the 61-run stand with his South African partner. They scored 80 runs in the first 10 overs, but lost Gaikwad, who perished attempting to slog Narine over long-off.