The cricketers of Kolkata Knight Riders came to the field after tasting the biryani of Hyderabad. That flavor got enhanced on Thursday when they defeated Sunrisers Hyderabad by 5 runs. Shardul Thakur and his bowlers did not let Rinku Singh and Nitish Rana’s battle with the bat fail. Batting first, Kolkata scored 171 runs. Hyderabad’s innings ended on 166 runs.
Nitish Rana won the toss and decided to bowl. It rained in Hyderabad. It was supposed to slow down a bit due to the pitch being covered. That is why the spinners were said to be favored in this match before the start of the match. KKR’s batsmen, however, could not handle any of the spinners, pacers and bowlers. They came and went back. The exceptions are Rinku Singh and Nitish.
Rinku is consistently getting runs in the entire IPL. It would have been difficult for KKR to cross 150 runs in this match if it was not for Rinku, who has been scoring regularly. Nitish scored 42 runs off 31 balls too and hit three sixes and three fours. In other words, he scored 30 runs in six balls. He took 25 balls to score the remaining 12 runs. Rinku was there to keep the scoreboard moving with singles, not fours. They made a pair of 61 runs. The partnership made the ground for Kolkata Knight Riders to fight.
Gurbaz and Roy failed. Russ doomed with the bat
Jason Roy and Rahmanullah Gurbaz both were in the Kolkata team in this match. But neither of the two foreign openers could give Kolkata the needed confidence. Gurbaz was out for no runs. He tried to hit a six off the first ball itseld. However, he could time the ball enough coming from Janssen. The catch goes up to midwicket. Such a mistake at the beginning pushed Kolkata back in the second over. Jason scored 20 runs. He played 19 balls to get that run. Venkatesh Iyer got out for just 7 runs. Unable to handle Jansen’s bouncer, he went back to the dressing room as well. Within 35 runs, Kolkata’s first three batters returned to the dressing room.
Andre Russell scored 24 runs off 15 balls. He hit two sixes. But like most of the matches for the past two session, big runs did not came from his bat in this match too. Kolkata is not able to rely on Russell to build an innings anymore. Sunil Narine has also became dull with the bat. He got out with only 1 run from 2 balls. The way he got out is surprising. He did not understand Bhuvneshwar Kumar’s slower delivery and batted without going to the line of the ball. The catch goes to Mayank who is standing at extra cover. Shardul Thakur scored 8 runs.
Markram excels both with bat and ball
Marco Janssen started the wicket taking for Hyderabad. Kolkata started losing wickets from his first over. He bowled three overs in the power play. But the captain did not give Jansen the ball to bowl his fouth over. The reason however is indeed surprising.
Skipper Aiden Markram started to spin the ball himself which suited the character of the pitch. Thus he came useful for Hyderabad. He took the important wicket of Nitish Rana. Markram ran back himself jumped towards mid-on and took the catch. This catch can enter the list of one of the best catches of IPL this time. Jansen and T Natarajan took two wickets each for Hyderabad. Bhuvneshwar, Karthik Tyagi, Markram and Mayank Markande took one wicket each.
Varun with the ball win it for Kolkata against Hyderabad in the last over
Coming down to chase the target of 172 runs, Hyderabad was losing wickets from the start. But in between, the Markram and his men were picking up runs. Hyderabad’s impact player Rahul Tripathi scored 20 runs off 9 balls. The way he started to play, at one point it looked like Hyderabad would win easily against Kolkata. But Russell returned him in a short run. Shardul Thakur took two wickets. He came to bowl in the last over but Nitish took the ball from his hand to Varun Chakraborty. Varun won the match in the last over.
Hyderabad needed 9 runs in the last over to win against Kolkata. But Hyderabad could score only 3 runs. The credit goes to Varun. The wonder spinner from Kolkata showed that he can still win the match by changing the pace in the last over.
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