The Kolkata Knight Riders showed they are not just a chasing team. With a big crowd at the Eden Gardens cheering them on, KKR showed their might with the ball on a slow pitch to outfox the Sunrisers Hyderabad in an IPL 2017 match on Saturday.
Put into bat, the Kolkata Knight Riders got to 172 in their 20 overs, thanks to a half-century from Robin Uthappa.
The Sunrisers Hyderabad looked a little lost in the reply once the spinners came into play, with KKR completing a comprehensive win.
Shikhar Dhawan and David Warner got SRH off to a decent start, but once the spinners came on for KKR, the wheels started to come off the batting lineup.
Dhawan (23, 22b, 4x4) holed out in the deep to Yusuf Pathan, punting a shot straight down long-off's throat and then Warner (26, 30b, 4x4), after struggling and struggling and struggling against Kuldeep Yadav, did the same, with the SRH captain looking disgusted at the manner in which he had batted.
Warner and Dhawan are SRH's key batsman in any game, and with those two back in the dugout, KKR went for the kill, especially with the run rate of the Sunrisers dropping down considerably as well.
When Warner fell, the equation read 114 from 61 balls, and while the in-form Yuvraj Singh (26, 16b, 2x4, 2x6) kept the SRH hopes alive for a little while with a few gorgeous shots – one lofted six over long-off was one you wanted to watch over and over and over and over again – the required rate was beyond even the left-hander.
The KKR batting innings again began with Sunil Narine 6, 9b, 1x4) striding out with captain Gautam Gambhir, but this time there would be no big hits and "what a great move that turned out to be," as Bhuvneshwar Kumar got a perfect yorker to uproot the off-stump.
Then came a mistake that changed the course of the innings.
Robin Uthappa, first ball from Bhuvneshwar, hung his bat out, got a massive deflection off the face of the bat, and as the Sunrisers Hyderabad players celebrated, the umpire Anil Dandekar, for reasons only known to him, gave it not out.
Even if he hadn't heard the edge, there was such a huge deflection that it was almost impossible to miss. The umpiring has been quite poor in IPL 2017, and that decision only made it worse.
Uthappa would get three more lives in the course of his innings, with SRH missing a run out, Shikhar Dhawan almost pulling out of a catch diving forward and the third umpire deciding to give the batsman not out for a catch off the pad, even though it had gone upstairs only to check if the catch was clean.
The right-hander didn't care, though, and amidst all those lucky escapes, there were quite a few outstanding shots, with Uthappa bringing his timing and touch into play.
Uthappa (68, 39b, 5x4, 4x6) and Manish Pandey (46, 35, 3x4, 2x6), after Gambhir (15, 16b, 2x4) was castled by Rashid Khan, put on a really good partnership of 77, which set the KKR innings up nicely.
While the Kolkata Knight Riders could not quite get the big finish they were hoping for – Bhuvneshwar was quite outstanding in the death overs again and it is about time he becomes India's go-to bowler in the limited-overs game – they did get to a score of about par, which, with their strong bowling lineup, they defended comfortably.
Watch the highlights of KKR vs SRH HERE and HERE
KKR vs SRH scorecard:
Toss: SRH won the toss, chose to bowl.
KKR: 172/6 in 20 overs.
SRH: 155/6 in 20 overs.
Result: KKR won by 17 runs.
Bowling:
SRH: Bhuvneshwar Kumar 4-0-20-3; Ashish Nehra 4-0-35-1; Ben Cutting 4-0-41-1; Rashid Khan 4-0-29-1; Moises Henriques 2-0-26-0; Bipul Sharma 2-0-20-0.
KKR: Umesh Yadav 3-0-27-0; Trent Boult 4-0-33-1; Sunil Narine 4-0-18-1; Kuldeep Yadav 4-0-23-1; Yusuf Pathan 1-0-2-1; Chris Woakes 4-0-49-2.
Fall of wickets:
KKR: 10/1, Sunil Narine (2.2 overs); 40/2, Gautam Gambhir (5.4 overs); 117/3, Robin Uthappa (14.2 overs); 153/4, 153/4, Manish Pandey (17.4 overs); 163/5, Suryakumar Yadav (18.5 overs); 170/6, Colin de Grandhomme (19.4 overs).
SRH: 46/1, Shikhar Dhawan (6.4 overs); 59/2, David Warner (9.5 overs); 65/3, Moises Henriques (10.4 overs); 96/4, Deepak Hooda (13.2 overs); 112/5, Yuvraj Singh (14.5 overs); 129/6, Ben Cutting (17.1 overs).
