Kolkata: These are heady days for T20 and the ceiling of IPL scores keeps getting reset almost daily. Evidently, it’s playing havoc with the concept of par scores. That’s sad for the game overall because not too long ago 165 was considered more than decent.
Now, Sunrisers Hyderabad won’t be faulted for deeming it at least 60-75 runs less than what they would have settled for. No surprises then that they crashed to a seven-wicket defeat to Kolkata Knight Riders, who have now strung together three consecutive wins to quietly revive their campaign.
Sunrisers’ batters can’t escape the blame here, having gone from 105/1 in 8.5 overs to 148/7 in 16 overs in a game where two points could have propelled them to the top of the points table. Not only did they fail to last 20 overs for the first time this season, SRH were effectively without a specialist bat as early as the 17th over.
KKR, however, deserve all respect and applause for not losing belief in their bowlers in exceptional batting conditions. Sunil Narine turned back the clock with disciplined spin bowling that not only fetched him an economy of 7.75 but also the wickets of Salil Arora and Ishan Kishan to become the first overseas bowler to reach 200 IPL wickets.
Varun Chakravarthy was a tad more expensive, but considering that one of his three scalps was Travis Head—he hammered 68 off 28 balls—there is no denying he is hitting his strides again. Head’s innings provided the wheels on which Sunrisers raced off to yet another quick start despite losing Abhishek Sharma relatively early. And if the past has been any indication, Head’s dismissal, or that of Ishan Kishan—he scored 42 off 29—shouldn’t have impeded the innings.
But it did. Heinrich Klaasen was due a failure, leaving the Indian uncapped players too much heat to handle.
Three out of the top four dismissed in 10.4 overs, the onus was on Kishan to recalibrate the target and play. Later, SRH skipper Pat Cummins said the par score was probably “180, something like that. It did dry up a little bit and slow up. But again, from where we were, I think we should have got 180 plus.”
But Sunrisers didn’t play accordingly. Especially Kishan, who with four overs still to go, tried to take on Narine and ended up slicing him to Anukul Roy at long-off.
Not just bowling, KKR were exceptional in their catching as well. Be it Rovman Powell throwing himself and risking serious injury to catch Klaasen one-handed, Ajinkya Rahane braving the sun to catch Aniket Verma, or Roy showing the presence of mind to ensure his fingers were under the ball before claiming a low return catch of Cummins, every key moment mattered.
“It looked like they would get 190-200,” Rahane said at the post-match presentation. “It would’ve been challenging to chase. But credit to our bowling unit, especially the spinners. They kept taking wickets. Those small moments are really important.”
KKR’s chase could have been more emphatic given how Finn Allen got off to a breezy start. Two sixes and two fours, along with two runs and five wides, had given KKR 27 runs from the fourth over bowled by Cummins. But keen on pushing, Allen was lured into flicking a slower delivery to Klaasen at deep mid-wicket.
From there to Rahane’s dismissal in the 15th over, KKR added 84 runs without drama with the captain contributing 43 off 36 balls and Angkrish Raghuvanshi scoring a steady 59 off 47 balls. The urge to not hurry was understandable. But in a tournament where net run rates have played a major role, KKR’s lack of urgency was at times underwhelming.
Rinku Singh arrived to inject some pace to the innings though, breezing to an unbeaten 11-ball 22 to give KKR a much-needed win with 10 balls to spare.