Chennai: Sunrisers Hyderabad started their campaign with a 10-run loss to Kolkata Knight Riders, with Nitish Rana (80) and Rahul Tripathi (53)’s opening batsman Nitish Rana (80) hitting the Indian Premier League match on Sunday .
SRH’s Rashid Khan (2/24) was at his best again and asked tough questions to the KKR batsmen, but most of his colleagues in the bowling were ineffective on a slow but decent batting surface. Hyderabad lost captain David Warner (3) and Wriddhiman Saha (7) early and always played a catch-up game despite Jonny Bairstow’s vegry half-century.
They were eventually able to score 177 for five. Warner was executed by Pat Cummins in the first over bowled by Harbhajan Singh, but he could not use life well and becomes a victim of pacemaker Prasidh Krishna while Saha is cleared by Shakib Al Hasan. Jonny Bairstow (55) and Manish Pandey (61 not out) formed a partnership at a steady run rate.
Australian pacemaker Cummins broke their 92-run stand when he had Bairstow caught by Rana at the back end. SRH has needed 70 of the last five overs. Mohammed Nabi, 14, was hit on the neck by Krishna, but the Afghan responded with a crackling six. He went after it, but only to be caught by Eoin Morgan.
The 19-year-old Abdul Samad, who hails from Jammu and Kashmir, cleared two sixes and a four from Cummins in the penultimate over to keep SRH in the hunt. Andre Russell, KKR’s 22 runs from the last over, held his nerves to deny SRH a victory.
Earlier, left-back batsman Rana hit the ball hard and clean to give his team a confident start after being asked to take the first shot. Neither Bhuvneshwar Kumar nor T Natarajan could stop Rana from hitting boundaries, even though Subhman Gill was initially silent.
Sandeep Sharma has been hit three boundaries in a row for him. Gill opened his arms to hit a massive straight six from Natarajan to make it even better for KKR. However, the run flow was affected when the reliable Rashid got the ball in his hands. He also made the breakthrough when he misled Gill with a wrong person to find the stumps.
However, Rana went strong and ended his half-century with a six from Vijay Shankar after surviving an LBW appeal from Rashid. He overturned the decision and accepted the DRS call. Rana’s six strokes continued after he turned fifty when he punished Natarajan and Sandeep again. His colleague on the other hand, Rahul Tripathi, also stroked confidently and fluently.
He broke down a massive six from Bhuvneshwar and then followed up with a brutal four in the third man region. He completed his fifty with another boundary from Bhuvneshwar, but was fired shortly afterwards by Natarajan when he tackled a ball over the top. Rashid also sent back the dangerous Andre Russell (5). Mohammed Nabi (2/32) got rid of consecutive balls in the 18th innings of Rana and Eoin Morgan (2).
Source: Telangana Today