The Kolkata Knight Riders beat the SunRisers Hyderabad by 10 runs in the third game of IPL 2021 on Sunday at MA Chidambaram Stadium. The KKR side led by Eoin Morgan displayed an all round show to win their opening game of the season. With this victory, Kolkata clinched a hat trick of wins against Hyderabad owing to SRH's two defeats in the last season of the IPL.
Having asked to bat first by the SRH Captain David Warner, KKR were off to a flying start thanks to the opening pair of Shubman Gill and Nitish Rana. The openers made a 53 run stand for the first wicket.
Further on both Rana and Rahul Tripathi smashed half centuries as former's brilliant 80 off 56 balls studded with 9 fours and 4 sixes and the latter's 53 off 29 coupled with Dinesh Karthik's cameo of quick fire 22 off 9 at the end powered Kolkata to a formidable total of 187/6 by the end of their 20 overs.
For SRH, Rashid Khan again proved to be their key bowler, taking 2 crucial wickets of Gill (15 off 13) and the explosive Andre Russell (5 off 5). Mohammad Nabi took two important scalps as well in the form Rana and KKR Skipper Eoin Morgan (2 of 3).
In reply, Sunrisers Hyderabad put up a disappointing start as both their openers David Warner and Wriddhiman Saha were dismissed in the first three overs itself as SRH struggled on 10/2 .However, Jonny Bairstow and Manish Pandey displayed great resilience as the duo kept SRH's hopes alive with a half-century each. Jonny Bairstow scored 55 runs off 40 balls, while Manish Pandey smashed a brilliant 61 runs off 44 balls. However, the efforts were not enough for the Sunrisers Hyderabad as they fell short of 10 runs requiring 22 runs in the final over ending their turn on 177/5.
Prasidh Krishna claimed 2 crucial wickets of SRH captain David Warner (3 off 4) and Nabi (14 off 11) finishing his spell at 2/35. Pacer Pat Cummins (1/30) took the wicket of Jonny Bairstow. Andre Russel finished with the figures of 1/32 in his 3 overs featuring the wicket of V. Shankar (11 off 7).
