KOLKATA, In­dia – Sunil Nar­ine lashed a mag­nif­i­cent maid­en Twen­ty20 hun­dred but it came in a los­ing cause as Eng­lish­man Jos But­tler re­spond­ed with his eighth cen­tu­ry in the for­mat, to help Ra­jasthan Roy­als reel in 224 and equal the high­est suc­cess­ful chase in In­di­an Pre­mier League his­to­ry on Tues­day.

The left-hand­ed Nar­ine blast­ed 109 off 56 balls at the top of the or­der, a knock which pro­pelled Kolkata Knight Rid­ers to 223 for six off their 20 overs af­ter they were sent in at Eden Gar­dens.

How­ev­er But­tler, who on­ly ten days ago belt­ed ex­act­ly 100 not out in a win­ning ef­fort against Roy­al Chal­lengers Ben­galu­ru, sparkled yet again with a sen­sa­tion­al un­beat­en 107 off 60 de­liv­er­ies, as Roy­als won by two wick­ets with a ball to spare.

They need­ed eight runs from the fi­nal over from leg-spin­ner Varun Chakravarthy and But­tler made sure of the vic­to­ry by clear­ing the ropes at long on with the first ball be­fore sprint­ing a cou­ple to long-off of the penul­ti­mate de­liv­ery.

But­tler’s hero­ics and Roy­als’ record chase over­shad­owed Nar­ine’s per­for­mance, the 35-year-old al­so pick­ing up two for 30 from four overs of top class off-spin, to com­plete an amaz­ing out­ing.

“The job is just to go out there and try to give a good start, what­ev­er sit­u­a­tion is there still keep go­ing,” Nar­ine said.

“If you play too many balls in the pow­er-play it could hurt you down in the back end so it’s just to go out there and give the team as much as a good start as pos­si­ble.”

KKR lost Phil Salt for ten in the fourth over with 21 on the board but Nar­ine cranked up the scor­ing as he dom­i­nat­ed an 85-run, sec­ond wick­et part­ner­ship with Angkr­ish Raghu­van­shi (30) and a 51-run fourth wick­et stand with for­mer West In­dies team­mate An­dre Rus­sell (13).

All told, Nar­ine lashed 13 fours and half-dozen six­es, reach­ing his fifty off 29 de­liv­er­ies be­fore com­plet­ing three fig­ures off an­oth­er 20 balls when he clob­bered the fi­nal de­liv­ery of the 16th over from leg-spin­ner Yuzven­dra Cha­hal to the mid-wick­et bound­ary.

Fac­ing a stiff ask­ing rate of 11.2 runs per over, Roy­als found them­selves on 47 for two in the fifth over be­fore But­tler an­chored a 50-run third wick­et stand with Riyan Parag (30) to stage a re­cov­ery.

The in­nings slumped, how­ev­er, when four wick­ets col­lapsed for 24 runs, West In­dies left-han­der Shim­ron Het­my­er among the ca­su­al­ties when he per­ished for a first-ball ‘duck’.

Tot­ter­ing on 121 for six in the 13th over and star­ing at a new re­quired run rate of 14.14, Roy­als were lift­ed by But­tler again, this time in a cru­cial 67-run, sev­enth wick­et stand with West In­dies T20 cap­tain Rov­man Pow­ell whose 26 came from 13 balls and in­clud­ed a four and three six­es.

When Pow­ell fell in the 17th over and Trent Boult fol­lowed for a first-ball ‘duck’ in the next over, But­tler saw his side over the line in an un­bro­ken ninth wick­et part­ner­ship of 38 with Avesh Khan (0).

CMC