Bengaluru, May 17:
Kolkata Knight Riders produced a disciplined bowling and fielding effort to restrict defending champions Sunrisers Hyderabad to a modest 128 for seven in the IPL Eliminator, here today.
Returning to the side after an injury lay-off, Nathan Coulter-Nile (3/20) impressed with the ball. He was ably supported by Umesh Yadav (2/21).
Sent into bat, it was struggle for Sunrsiers from the onset as skipper David Warner (37) and Shikhar Dhawan (11) found the going tough against the KKR bowling attack on a slowish and difficult M Chinnaswmay pitch.
The slow scoring rate finally took a toll on Sunrisers as Dhawan perished in the second delivery of the fifth over.
Dhawan slashed at a good length delivery of Umesh only managing to balloon it to Robin Uthappa behind the stumps with the Sunrisers scoreboard reading 25 for one.
With the boundaries hard to come by, Warner finally broke the shackles in the ninth over clobbering Piyush Chawla’s (1/27) short delivery over midwicket boundary for a maximum.
New man in Kane Williamson (24) showed his class as he smacked Coulter-Nile for a boundary and a huge six off consecutive balls to pick up 13 runs of the 10th over.
At the halfway stage, Sunrisers were 61 for one.
With time Warner grew in confidence and his big hitting skills came to the fore. He didn’t spare a single loose ball and clobbered a marginally short delivery from Sunil Narine way over the long on boundary.
But just when the partnership between Warner and Williamson was looking dangerous, twin blows in consecutive overs rattled Sunrisers’ innings.
First Williamson departed caught at extra cover by Suryakumar Yadav off Coulter-Nile while trying to lift the ball over the in-field and then in the next over dangerous Warner was cleaned up by Chawla.
The duo stitched 50 runs for the second wicket off 44 balls balls.
Yuvraj Singh (9) and young Vijay Shankar (22) shared quick 24 runs of three overs for the fourth wicket before the former fell, caught by Chawla at deep backward square-leg off Umesh while trying to up the ante.
Coulter-Nile then struck twice in the 19th over, first removing Shankar and then Chris Jordan to make matters worse for Sunrisers.
Naman Ojha made a run-a-ball 16 before perishing in the final delivery of the innings. (PTI)
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