KKR have begun this year's VIVO IPL campaign with a win against Sunrisers Hyderabad. Eoin Morgan's men winning their opening fixture by 10 runs at The Chepauk Stadium in Chennai.
Sunrisers lead by David Warner won the toss and elected to put KKR into bat. Shubman Gill and in particular Nitish Rana got KKR of to a solid start reaching 50 without loss after 5.4 overs, Rana scoring 34 of those with strong shots through extra cover and square of the wicket on both sides. SRH made the breakthrough in the 7th over when Warner introduced World No1 Rashid Khan to the attack, he produced a beauty of a googly to send Gill packing for 15. Rana was joined in the middle by Rahul Tripathi and the pair really set about the SRH bowlers, Rana went to 50 from 37 balls with 8 fours and an Unacademy maximum. 100 was on the board after 11.3 overs and the pair took their partnership to 50 from just 27 balls, both men adding 25. Tripathi then went to his own 50 with 5 fours and two sixes. A score around 200 looked on the cards at this stage but Mohammed Nabi returned to take two wickets in the 18th over and KKR were in danger of throwing away their good work with the bat. Dinesh Karthick however plundered 22 from 9 balls to take KKR to 187-6 from their 20 overs and leave SRH with a difficult chase.
That chase got off to the worst possible start as David Warner was caught behind by Karthik off Prasidh Krishna in the 2nd over to leave SRH 10/1. Worse followed in the third over as Shakib Al-Hasan bowled Wriddhiman Saha with his first ball of his 2nd spell with KKR to leave SRH 10/2 and facing an uphill struggle. Jonny Bairstow and Manish Pandey recovered to leave SRH 35/2 after the powerplay but with much still to do. Bairstow who was in red hot form during England's ODI series against India continued in the same vein with boundaries to all corners and he raced to 50 from just 32 balls with 5 fours and 3 sixes. KKR were becoming desperate for a breakthrough and wasted their review on a poor LBW shout that had been turned down, but it was the reintroduction of Aussie paceman Pat Cummins that broke the partnership as Bairstow slapped a short wide delivery straight to Rana at gully to expose SRH's weak middle order although at 102/3 they were still in with a shout. Nabi and Vijay Shankar made double figure scores but SRH were falling behind the required run rate and were left needing 23 from their final over. Pandey ended the match with a six to end 61* from 44 and Abdul Samad 19* from 8 with two maximums, but their efforts were in vein as KKR collected a deserved win.
Greg Griffiths
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