Kolkata: An all-round effort from Nitish Kumar Reddy, coupled with quickfire forties from Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma and a mature fifty from Heinrich Klaasen helped Sunrisers Hyderabad beat Kolkata Knight Riders by 65 runs here on Thursday.
Set a target of 227, KKR took to the chase with gusto as Finn Allen blasted 28 runs off six balls before his slog was caught by bowler Harsh Dubey in the second over. Angkrish Raghuvanshi tried to shore up the innings with a 29-ball 52 but it was nowhere close to the momentum they needed to chase a record total.
Cameron Green departed due to a comical mixup with Raghuvanshi who later found himself stranded because Rinku Singh was caught ball-watching. Between those dismissals Ajinkya Rahane tried to manufacture shots but either didn’t get the timing right or found a fielder.
Coming in at No. 5, Rinku had the time and opportunity to show he belongs higher in the order but his strike rate never matched the requirements. Disciplined bowling by Sunrisers made that happen as Jaydev Unadkat (3/21) and Eshan Malinga (2/14) conceded just 35 runs in five overs between them. Reddy then dismissed Rinku, and from there the equation was always against KKR.
In hindsight the match was already won in the Powerplay where Abhishek Sharma (48 off 21 balls) and Travis Head (46 off 21) helped Sunrisers rack up 84, the season’s highest score.
The trickiest part of bowling to either Head or Abhishek is getting the length right. Too short and the pull comes out, too full and all they need to do is get the placement right. KKR learnt that the hard way within three overs as Sunrisers amassed 43 runs—16 off one over from Blessing Muzarabani and the rest from Vaibhav Arora. As expected, distress calls were sent to Sunil Narine who immediately nipped the momentum with three dots in the first four deliveries.
On the fifth ball, Head danced down the track to lift Narine but the ball turned, took the outer edge, and speared high into the humid Kolkata skies. Parked at cover, Ajinkya Rahane scampered back and dived full length but couldn’t hold on to the catch. Still, three runs off that over would have secured the win had Varun Chakravarthy not conceded 25 runs in the next over.
Containing Head and Abhishek in a small ground is never easy but the fact that the last two boundaries off Chakravarthy would have been wides if Abhishek had let them go points to perhaps a deeper issue.
At that rate, Sunrisers were poised to go well above their previous powerplay record of 72. Four, a wide, and a six off the first three balls from Kartik Tyagi in the next over boosted the score to 82 but Head couldn’t sustain the momentum anymore. Tyagi bowled a back-of-a-length ball that Head expectedly tried to hit, but his bottom hand came off the handle, resulting in a catch by Cameron Green at mid-on. Ishan Kishan was next and quickly made his intentions clear with three consecutive boundaries off Tyagi.
By then Abhishek had raced to 47 off 19 balls, cutting and pulling like he could do it in his sleep. Kishan too kept hacking at balls until he slashed Muzarabani in front of square and holed out to Rinku Singh at sweeper cover.
It was nowhere close to a wicket-taking delivery but at that point, KKR would have happily taken it. Two balls later however, the game opened up with Abhishek’s dismissal, this time off a slower delivery from Muzarabani. This was all Chakravarthy though, he almost overran a flat-batted slog towards deep square before pumping the brakes and lunging forward to catch the ball dying on his fingertips. Abhishek wasn’t convinced with the decision but it was nevertheless a sensational catch considering Chakravarthy isn’t the most athletic fielder.
KKR had finally made it to the middle-order but so extravagant was the start that despite Narine, Chakravarthy and Anukul Roy squeezing the flow of runs, Sunrisers were still averaging above 11 per over. All they needed to do was consolidate from that point and Heinrich Klaasen did exactly that, farming the strike with Reddy—who scored a 24-ball 39—and hitting occasional boundaries in a mature 35-ball 52. KKR kept pressing, but Sunrisers still ended with 103 runs in the last 10 overs compared to 123 in the first 10.
