Kolkata Knight Riders won their third game in four matches this season, completing a comfortable 17-run win over Sunrisers Hyderabad at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata on Sunday. On a slow pitch, Robin Uthappa rode his luck to take KKR a substantial 172/6.
David Warner and Shikhar Dhawan got Hyderabad off to a good start but the introduction of Kolkata’s spinners gave their chase a dent they could not recover from as they fell short by 17 runs. By virtue of this win, Kolkata jumped to the top of the table with six points from four matches and a superior net run rate over Mumbai Indians.
No repeat of Narine’s heroics
Sunil Narine walked out again to reprise his role as an opener after his heroics in the last match against Punjab. But there was to be no repeat this time, Bhuvneshwar Kumar knocked him over with a perfect yorker for just 6.
Gambhir fails, Uthappa doesn’t (with a little help from the umpires)
With two fifties so far, captain Gautam Gambhir has been in great form so far but Sunrisers Hyderabad had a huge breakthrough when Rashid Khan rattled his stumps in only his first over for just 15.
But Gambhir’s former opening partner Robin Uthappa was up to the task. In a display of sensational timing and power, he slammed four sixes on his way to a 27-ball 50 to keep KKR’s run rate high. But he can thank his luck - Uthappa got a huge edge on his very first ball he faced but the umpires blundered by not giving him out. Dhawan also dropped him while a catch to the keeper was first given out by the onfield umpires but was over-ruled by the third umpire.
Uthappa was finally dismissed for a 39-ball 68, but by then, had done enough damage.
Brilliant Bhuvi
Bhuvneshwar Kumar just gets better and better every match he plays. He bowled the first two overs, got Narine’s wicket and gave away only 7 runs. He came back to bowl the last two overs and conceded just 13 and two more wickets to finish with figures of 3/20 in four overs. His spell was instrumental in Kolkata getting only 22 runs in the last three overs. Fantastic bowling and he deserves that Purple Cap.
Spin is king for KKR
The newly relaid Eden Gardens surface looked a pace lover’s paradise on Thursday against Punjab. But come Saturday, it had reverted to its drier, slower character. And recognising that, Gautam Gambhir went back to his old favourites after Hyderabad had gotten off to 32/0 after 4 overs. Sunil Narine, Kuldeep Yadav and Yusuf Pathan were brought on to bowl and the moved paid off handsomely. Pathan dismissed the dangerous Shikhar Dhawan while Hyderabad got stuck in a rut. They only added 21 off the next five to get to the first time-out at 53/1 after 9 overs.
Finally, a frustrated Warner tried to smash Kuleep out of the ground and only managed to give a catch to Chris Woakes at long-off.
Narine went for 1/18 in his four overs, Kuldeep went for 1/23 in his quota. Together they squeezed Hyderabad’s chase to a point where they never recovered.
Yuvraj nostalgia
Yuvraj Singh can roll back the years. He tried his level best to resurrect a lost cause for Hyderabad, slamming some beautiful sixes and fours in his 16-ball 26-run cameo. But there was one shot too many as Chris Woakes finally managed to dismiss him out to put Hyderabad farther in trouble.
Brief scores:
Kolkata Knight Riders 172/6 in 20 overs (Robin Uthappa 68, Manish Pandey 46; Bhuvneshwar Kumar 3/20, Rashid Khan 1/29) beat Sunrisers Hyderabad 155/6 in 20 overs (David Warner 26, Yuvraj Singh 26; Chris Woakes 2/49, Yusuf Pathan 1/2) by 17 runs
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