Kolkata Knight Riders produced an all-round performance to register a thumping 54-run victory over Sunrisers Hyderabad to remain in contention for the IPL 2022 playoffs at the MCA Stadium in Pune on Saturday. Batting first, KKR posted a challenging 177/6 and then restricted SRH to 123/8 and secured their sixth win in 13 attempts, which saw them climb to sixth position in the standings.
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SRH never gave up the chase as they lost skipper Kane Williamson and Rahul Tripathi cheaply. Openers Abhishek Sharma (43) and Aiden Markram (32) tried to rebuild the innings but KKR continued to give them regular strikes.
Russell, who first acted with the bat to push KKR to a winning total, dazzled with the ball as he took 3/22 from his four overs.
Earlier, Umran Malik was back in his groove after a few forgettable outings as he took them to 177/6 before Russell’s unbeaten 49 ran through KKR’s top-order.
Read also: KKR vs SRH Match Highlights
Russell added 63 runs for the sixth wicket with Sam Billings (34 off 29 balls) to help him overcome a difficult 94/5 at one point.
KKR added 58 runs in the last five overs, mainly because of Russell, as he hit three sixes off three full-tosses bowled by off-break bowler Washington Sundar (0/40 in four overs).
Malik (3/33 in four overs), who was dismissed for 120 in his last 10 overs (in three matches) and also without a wicket, came back to dismiss Nitish Rana, bowling fast and straight. Had gone. (26 off 16 balls), Ajinkya Rahane (28 runs in 23 balls) and skipper Shreyas Iyer (15 off 9 balls) outscored KKR in their first two overs.
He found good support from T Natarajan (1/43), who perfected the block-hole delivery to get rid of Rinku Singh (5), who missed the review, though it counted for little.
Venkatesh Iyer’s “second season blues” continued as he cut one off Marco Jensen (1/30 in 4 overs) at the stumps.
As far as Rahane is concerned, he has come a long way past his IPL sales date and even three sixes could not hide the fact that he played a lot of dot balls and once he got cramped When started, it became even more difficult to rotate the strike. ,
He was out in the end when he worked hard on a wide rising delivery and Shashank Singh maintained perfect body balance to the side to take the catch over the sweeper cover fence.
KKR’s batting looked good in the end as Russell and Billings took the attack back into the opposition camp with some big strikes after an early round of struggle.
Jamaica had three fours and four sixes to its name, while Billings hit three fours and a maximum for his side.
Towards the end of the innings, the shrewd Bhuvneshwar threw his change-ups to ease Russell’s scoring areas as he had an impressive 13 dot balls throughout his spell.
The win has improved KKR’s hopes of a top-four spot but SRH will not only have to win their last two games, but also hope that other results will now stand in their way to make it to the playoffs.
With PTI inputs
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