Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) won the game by 7 wickets as they chased down Sunrisers Hyderabad’s (SRH) total of 142 comfortably with 2 overs to spare.
Led by a sensible innings from the young Shubhman Gill (70* of 62), KKR chased the target comfortably after losing Sunil Narine (0 of 2) early.
Eoin Morgan (42* of 29) and Shubham Gill took KKR over the line with a brilliant partnership of 92 runs. During the chase, the SRH bowlers never looked threatening as the KKR batters knocked them around for singles and doubles, alongside being able to find the occasional boundary.
Choosing to bat first after winning the toss, SRH had a lukewarm day with the bat as they could only get to 142-4 at the end of the stipulated 20 overs. Manish Pandey (51 of 38) led the way with the bat as he stitched together crucial partnerships with David Warner (36 of 30) and Wriddhiman Saha (30 of 31).
At the end of 15 overs, SRH could only manage 99 runs, in spite of losing just 2 wickets. This hurt them dearly as even after getting 43 in the last 5, they could not manage to put up a challenging score on the board.
Pat Cummins (1 for 19) Varun Chakravarthy (1 for 25) were the pick of the bowlers for KKR as they accounted for Jonny Bairstow and David Warner respectively, alongside being economical. Dinesh Karthik, the KKR skipper, used as many as seven bowling options during the game.
None of the SRH batsmen, apart from Pandey, could really get going and they failed to accelerate in spite of being able to build small partnerships. SRH’s middle order was exposed for the second game in a row and failed to perform for the franchisee.
Pat Cummins’ proved his worth as he was brilliant during the powerplay. In his three overs in that phase, he gave away a mere 11 runs and got the wicket of Jonny Bairstow.
SRH are still left searching for an answer to their biggest dilemma, who to bat beyond their top three?
