Ajinkya Rahane Gives Fiery Take On Eden Gardens 'Pitch' Row: "Bawal Ho Jayega..."

Kolkata Knight Riders skipper Ajinkya Rahane was once again visibly disappointed with the nature of the Eden Gardens pitch and lamented over lack of help for spinners after the team's second loss at home. However, the seasoned campaigner chose his words carefully when the contentious topic of 'home advantage' was brought up, saying any comment from him could trigger a "bawal" (controversy). On a night when spin was expected to play a crucial role, Lucknow Super Giants edged past the defending champions by four runs, handing Rahane's KKR their second loss in three home games this season. "Firstly, there was no help for the spinners, let me clear that," Rahane said after the game.

LSG posted 238/3 before limiting KKR to 234/7. Rahane's decision to bowl seemingly backfired as the rival batters outsmarted KKR's plans, scoring runs to the longer side of the ground.

"They used the boundary really well, you know, bowling to the longer end, I mean longer boundary, they did that really well, our bowlers tried as well, but again, (Nicholas) Pooran and Mitchell Marsh batted really well in between, they took their chances which came off really well for them.

"It was a lovely wicket, we all saw that, scoring almost 500 runs on this track, hard for the bowlers, but again, they used the conditions and used the boundary really well."

While the LSG spin duo of Digvesh Rathi and Ravi Bishnoi went for 80 runs from their eight overs combined but managed to pick two crucial wickets, their KKR counterparts -- Sunil Narine and Varun Chakravarthy -- returned wicketless, conceding over nine runs per over.

Narine, in fact, didn't even complete his full quota of four overs.

This prompted the inevitable question: does ‘home advantage' even exist in