David Warner returned to the Indian Premier League (IPL) in style as he slammed his 40th half century of the tournament during the encounter between Sunrisers Hyderabad and Kolkata Knight Riders on Sunday.

Thanks to this fifty, Warner became the highest run scorer against KKR in the IPL with 762 runs. The previous record belonged to Mumbai Indians skipper Rohit Sharma who has scored 757 runs.

The Australia opener, who was not part of last year’s competition after getting banned by Cricket Australia for his involvement in the sandpaper controversy, looked in brilliant form against the KKR bowlers. He attacked both Prasidh Krishna and Piyush Chawla from the beginning and guided SRH to a brilliant start to their innings.

READ: KKR vs SRH LIVE IPL Cricket Score Match 2

KKR kept changing bowlers but it had no effect on Warner’s strokeplay as he played his natural game and along with his opening partner Jonny Bairstow, he added 118 runs - the fourth best partnership for SRH ever.

With the Eden Gardens pitch not helping the bowlers much, Warner continued to play fearlessly and with the help of nine fours and three sixes, the left-hander was able to score 85 off 53 deliveries. However, his innings finally came to an end in the 16th over as Robin Uthappa pulled off a great catch to send him back to the pavilion.

As a result, Warner fell 15 runs short of becoming the third batsman to score four IPL centuries after Virat Kohli and Shane Watson. Kings XI Punjab opener Chris Gayle leads the charts with six hundreds to his name.

First Published: Mar 24, 2019 17:24 IST