SRH Crush KKR by 65 Runs at Eden Gardens in Dominant All-Round Show
Sunrisers Hyderabad returned to winning ways in style with a dominant 65-run victory over Kolkata Knight Riders at Eden Gardens. Batting first, SRH put up a strong total, and their bowlers backed it up with an excellent performance to seal the win. This was also the first time this season that a team batting first managed to win, making it a special result for the Orange Army.
Put into bat first, Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma turned on a rampage mode to decimate the KKR bowlers in the powerplay, adding 82 for the first wicket. Both the openers missed out on their respective half-centuries, with Head hitting 46 and Abhishek 48 after both faced exactly 21 balls. Kartik Tyagi stopped the mayhem in the final over of the powerplay, removing Head.
Ishan Kishan got off to a quick start, but couldn't march past 14. Aniket Verma failed tonight. There was a little hiccup with SRH collapsing from 111/1 to 118/4, but Heinrich Klaasen and Nitish Kumar Reddy batted with maturity to rebuild the innings with an 82-run fifth-wicket partnership. Klaasen went on to score a fifty, while Reddy did well to score 39 off 24 balls.
SRH dominate KKR with all-round performance in 65-run win
Harsh Dubey and Shivang Kumar hit a couple of vital boundaries towards the end as the Hyderabad-based franchise posted a massive 226/8 in 20 overs. Blessing Muzarabani was expensive in his first over but finished with 4/41. Vaibhav Arora picked up 2 wickets, while Tyagi and Anukul Roy scalped a wicket each. Sunil Narine went wicketless, while Varun Chakaravarthy's woes continued with the ball.
Finn Allen hammered 24 runs in the first over, bowled by David Payne, but fell in the next over. Harsh Dubey took a screamer in his follow-through to halt Allen's fun that lasted only 7 balls, but the Kiwi dasher hit 28 in the blink of an eye. Ajinkya Rahane struggled with the bat. Angkrish Raghuvanshi was promoted to number 3, and he kept the Knight Riders in the hunt with his second consecutive half-century. He slammed a cracking 52 off 29 balls, but had a couple of miscommunications with his batting partners. Cameron Green was its first victim, while he ran out himself on the second occasion.
KKR lost wickets at regular intervals and also had a couple of overs where they lost multiple wickets. Rinku Singh (35 off 25) tried to hold the innings together, but didn't have enough support, and the end was inevitable. Jaydev Unadkat showed his experience and wrapped up the game with a 3-wicket haul, finishing with 3/21 and helping SRH bundle KKR out for just 161 in 16 overs. Eshan Malinga and Nitish Kumar Reddy picked up two scalps each, while Dubey picked up the all-important wicket of Allen.