Kolkata Knight Riders took away important two points after etching a win against Sunrisers Hyderabad in Dubai on Sunday night. Chasing the modest total of 116, the KKR side went over the line in the last over.
The Knight Riders lost a couple of early wickets during the chase but Shubman Gill and Nitish Rana steadied the ship for the side and chipped in with a partnership of 55 runs for the third wicket.
While Gill notched up a crucial fifty during the course, Rana on the other side struggled a bit in the middle but managed to score 25 off 33 deliveries before getting out. KKR were 106/4 when captain Eoin Morgan joined Dinesh Karthik in the middle and the two batters anchored the team to a win eventually.
Earlier, in the day, SRH struggled with their batting after having a dismal start to the proceedings and were left tottering at 103/8 to get restricted to 115/8 in the allotted 20 overs.
Tim Southee, Shivam Mavi and Varun Chakravarthy picked up a couple of wickets during the course of the innings while Shakib al Hasan returned with impressive figures of 1/20 in 4 overs. Spinner Sunil Narine didn’t pick any wickets but bowled an economical spell. The right-arm bowler gave 12 runs in 4 overs.
KKR captain Eoin Morgan revealed that the pitch was more on the slower side. He further lauded Shubman Gill for his match-winning knock.
“The wicket played slower than we thought, than the wicket two nights ago. It swings early in the powerplay in these conditions, but it was sluggish. We needed to bowl and field well and we did. Shubman played extremely well and led the chase,” he said during the post-match presentation.
SRH skipper Kane Williamson admitted that the side was short of a few runs. “I think if we got closer to the 150-mark, might have been par. We did have our chances to squeeze the scoring but it was always going to be tough with such a low score. We haven’t been able to identify the right score all season. We need to go back to the drawing board and re-assess things,” he said.
Experts’ Opinion
Former India cricketer Yuvraj Singh hailed Shubman Gill for his innings. “Gill Gill gill! Shubman Gill der aye drust aye !! Abhishek Sharma tera kya hoga Sambha,” he wrote on Twitter.
Former India bowler Irfan Pathan lauded KKR for another comfortable win in the second leg. “Another comfortable win by KKR. UAE leg has been outstanding for them. Great Result despite losing Russell,” he tweeted.
Former India opener Aakash Chopra was of the opinion that KKR’s fate is in their own hands and the side just needs to win the upcoming fixtures to qualify for the playoffs.
“KKRhas their fate in their own hands…Win the next game and script a fabulous turnaround. If you lose the next game, you’d hope that there’s a 3-4 way tie on 12. No team can go past them on NRR irrespective of how big their remaining win is,” Chopra tweeted.
SRH will now play RCB in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday while KKR will be up against Rajasthan Royals in Sharjah on Thursday.