Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) outplayed Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) by 35 runs at the Eden Gardens here on Monday. KKR, which now has 11 points from 10 matches, is in third position, while SRH remains on eight points after playing nine matches.
One inspired over by speedstar Umesh Yadav at the start of the Sunrisers innings tilted the scales in favour of the host, which picked up a third win in its fifth home outing. KKR made 167 for seven before stopping the visitor’s pursuit at 132 for nine in the allotted 20 overs.
Brilliant bowlingDespite given an achievable target, things did not appear sunny for the Sunrisers which slipped into a crisis in the very first over. Yadav tore through the visitor’s batting line-up with two brilliant dismissals. After starting with a wide and conceding a boundary to David Warner, Yadav recovered with a spectacular delivery that both swung and moved off the seam to see the end of the SRH skipper, one of the best batsmen in the tournament.
Warner’s dismissal virtually broke the resolve of the visitor, which seemed to rely too much on its captain’s form. Three balls later Yadav beat Naman Ojha with sheer pace and movement to send the stumps cart wheeling. The match was virtually over at this juncture as Sunrisers failed to recover from the crisis before spinners Brad Hogg and Piyush Chawla pushed the visitors deeper into despair with some good bowling.
Moises Henriques (41) and some late charge from Karn Sharma (32) offered some consolation to the visitor, which never get its bating right. With this defeat, SRH has lost all its three matches at Eden Gardens.
Choked by spinnersEarlier, the spinning Sharmas — Karn and Bipul — had put the brake on KKR with some disciplined bowling. Karn broke a 57-run opening wicket partnership between Robin Uthappa and captain Gautam Gambhir, who had punished the pacers — Dale Steyn, Bhuvaneswar Kumar, Praveen Kumar and Henriques — in the PowerPlay.
The host, put into bat, had scored at a run-rate of 9.16 in this six-over period on a slow pitch that was not very conducive to batting.
The two SRH spinners gave away only 52 runs in their eight overs. Gambhir (31), Uthappa (30), Andre Russell (1) and Manish Pandey (33) departed when the Sharmas operated as the host posted 107 for four after 14 overs.
Henriques took out Ryan ten Doeschate (8) in the 15th over to put KKR under more pressure before Yusuf Pathan got the host out of the woods with an unbeaten 30 (19b, 4x4) and push the score to a respectable 167.
The visitor made a couple of changes to the team that beat Chennai Super Kings in the last outing, bringing in Steyn and Bipul in place of New Zealand pacer Trent Boult and all-rounder Ashish Reddy.
