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Sunrisers Hyderabad carve out 16-run win over KKR
Visakhapatnam, April 22
Sunrisers Hyderabad
pacers gave an awesome display of bowling at the death to propel their
side to a 16-run win over holders Kolkata Knight Riders in a
rain-curtailed Indian Premier League (IPL) contest here on Wednesday.
Put
in to bat, Sunrisers piled up 176/4, before showers reduced the
Knights' target to 118 in 12 overs as the Duckworth-Lewis rule was
invoked at the VDCA stadium in this port city.
The Knights,
however, could only muster 101/4 in their allotted overs, with the
batsmen failing to take full advantage of loose deliveries, while the
home side's bowlers also came up with a good show, maintaining good line
and length.
Sunrisers thus climbed to the fourth spot with their
second victory in five outings. The Knights remain third with a 3-2
win-loss record from five matches.
The game's last four overs
bowled by pacers Ravi Bopara, Bhuvneshwar Kumar (2 overs) and Praveen
Kumar yielded just 25 runs, as well controlled yorkers prevented the
willowers from going for the slog.
Chasing almost 10 an over, the
visitors seemed to have taken up the challenge in the early overs, with
Robin Uthappa tonking a few to the ropes. Two flick shots were
particularly praiseworthy.
Uthappa (34; 21b, 2x4, 2x6) and
skipper-opener Gautam Gambhir (4), each got a 'life', but the captain
could not derive benefit, as he got out slogging a yorker from Praveen
Kumar.
Uthappa, KKR's leading run scorer in the last edition, departed a little later, after chipping one to fine leg.
Jamaican
all-rounder Andre Russell once again started off his innings with some
lusty blows as he got stuck to left-arm spinner Bipul Sharma clobbering
him for two back to back sixes.
Just as he looked to take the
game away from the home team, English all-rounder Ravi Bopara was able
to clinch his wicket as he skied one straight to long off.
Bhuvneshwar
Kumar bowled a superb 10th over as he conceded only four runs. Neither
Manish Pandey nor Yusuf Pathan could get him away.
He was backed up brilliantly by Praveen as he gave away only seven in the next over.
Earlier
in the day, Sunrisers skipper David Warner was merciless in his
treatment of the Knights' bowling attack smashing his way to 91 off 55
balls. The knock included nine boundaries and four huge sixes.
The
skipper was ably supported by his opening partner Shikhar Dhawan who
made 54 off 46 balls and stitched a 130-run partnership with the
Australian.
KKR fought their way back into the contest by picking three quick wickets and restricted them to a chaseable total.
Warner
broke the shackles after the first three overs as he switch-hit South
African spinner Johan Botha for four to mark the beginning of his
aggressiveness.
The openers then started scoring runs freely. KKR
skipper Gautam Gambhir introduced his leading spinner including West
Indian Sunil Narine in the fourth over.
But his plan to deploy
spinners upfront backfired as they could not check the flow of runs or
pick up early wickets. At the half way stage, Sunrisers were 80 for no
loss.
Warner finally fell to a Morne Morkel delivery in the 14th over.
Dhawan
carried on the show and changed gears rapidly after having played
second fiddle to Warner for much of the innings. But he perished in the
penultimate over after a few trademark hits.