The Kolkata Knight Riders’ Sunil Narine with three for 26, and a fourth-wicket stand of 87 between Manish Pandey and Yusuf Pathan was the catalyst in their Indian Premier League (IPL) 22-run victory over the Sunrises Hyderabad, which was played at Eden Garden, Kolkata, yesterday.
The Sunrisers, in their quest to knock off the 172 runs for victory after limiting KKR to 171 for six, were restricted to 149 for eight. The victory ensures that KKR qualify for the play-offs. Sunrisers have already qualified.
Batting first, after the Sunrisers captain David Warner had won the toss, Knight Riders’ openers, Robin Uthappa and Gautam Gambhir, got the innings off to a brisk start, with Uthappa taking 13 runs off Bhuvneshwar Kumar and nine runs off Barinder Sran, in the opening overs.
But Uthappa (25 off 17-balls) paid for his gung-ho attitude, trying to hit Sran out of the park, he skied the ball and Kane Williamson took a great catch at backward-point, a bright start gone out the window.
Colin Munro joined Gambhir at the wicket, but Munro’s stay lasted a mere eight balls, as he lofted a a Deepak Hooda delivery sky-high and when it returned to earth he was caught by the keeper Naman Ojha.
KKR’s captain Gambhir (16) was next to go, shaping to drive Hooda over extra-cover, but instead he lifted the ball to Moises Henriques at long-off and KKR had lost three wickets for 24 runs off 23-balls.
Pandey and Pathan restored stability to the proceedings with their partnership. Pathan was particularly harsh on Karn Sharma, plundering 19 runs off one over. But two wickets within seven-balls for nine runs turned the game on its head.
Bhuvneshwar induced Pandey (48 off 30-balls, 2x4, 3x6) to fish outside his off-stump, but he only succeeded in lofting it to Williamson at backward-point, and Jason Holder lobbed a Mustafizur Rahman delivery into the hands of Henriques at short extra-cover.
Pathan went to his 18th T20 half-century off 30-balls.
Pathan (52) and Suryakumar Yadav took the team into the break. Pathan had struck three boundaries and two sixes in his 34-ball innings.
The Sunrisers’ Warner appeared to be in great form but lady luck deserted him, the opening batsman facing Narine, stepped across to leg to get into position for the reverse sweep, swung, misjudged the spin and was castled.
Then a flurry of wickets followed to put the Sunrisers on the back-foot. With the asking rate at more than 10 runs to the over, scoreboard pressure began to tell. Shikhar Dhawan (51 off 30-balls, 4x4, 3x6), looked to take on the bowlers, but no sooner had he reached his 25th IPL half-century, he fell victim to Kuldeep Yadav.
The batsman swept the delivery into the air and was caught by Colin Munro at deep mid-wicket.
Four balls later Naman Ojha departed, Narine tossed the ball up, Ojha top-edged the delivery behind, to give the keeper Robin Uthappa an easy catch.
Shakib al-Hassan accounted for Yuvraj Singh and Deepak Hooda was run-out. Yadav claimed his second scalp when Kane Williamson pulled the delivery and was caught by Suryakumar Yadav at backward square-leg.
The Sunrisers had lost five wickets in 25-balls for 31 runs, and the consequence was they now needed 15 runs to the over. But the rot did not stop there as Narine bowled Moises Henriques around his legs.
“It was a must-win game for us. The credit goes to the entire group. Yusuf is taking his time and his role has changed from being a finisher last season. We are now giving him more overs. I thought that 160 would be a good total. We can take a lot of positives from this game. It was a playoff for us. Suddenly when you lose a player of Russell’s caliber, it forces us to make changes,” said KKR skipper Gautam Gambhir.
BRIEF SCORES
Kolkata Knight Riders 171 for 6 (Yusuf 52, Pandey 48, Hooda 2-16) beat Sunrisers Hyderabad 148 for 8 (Dhawan 51, Narine 3-26, Kuldeep 2-28) by 22 runs.