IPL 2018: Match 10, KKR vs SRH - Who Said What

The odds, ahead of the game, were heavily stacked against the Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) as they were yet to win a game against the Kolkata Knights Riders (KKR) at the Eden Gardens. The game turned out to be another closely-fought affair, but the visitors cantered home by five wickets. The Knights, after underperforming with the willow, showed fight, but all in vain.

Knight Riders strain to find momentum

Kane Williamson won the toss and had no hesitation to field first for the fact that chasing targets have been the trend in the league thus far. KKR had a horrendous beginning as Robin Uthappa perished cheaply to Bhuvneshwar Kumar. Thereafter Nitish Rana and Chris Lynn took the attack to the opposition, however, Rana was nipped out by Billy Stanlake.

The Knights innings stumbled as Lynn became victim to Shakib Al Hasan’s wily left-arm off-breaks. Thereafter, wickets fell in clumps and they never gained the momentum they required to propel their score. Dinesh Karthik tried his best but was dismissed in the penultimate over. The Knights eventually mustered 138 runs, which seemed a tad below par on the wicket.

Three out of three for Sunrisers

The Sunrisers commenced their run-chase in an impressive manner as Wriddhiman Saha raced away and scored 25 runs. Thereafter, Sunil Narine and Kuldeep Yadav got rid of Shikhar Dhawan and Manish Pandey, which brought the home team back into the game. Narine’s delivery to dismiss Dhawan was an absolute peach as it completely foxed the Delhi-born cricketer.

Kane Williamson and Shakib Al Hasan showed resilience and built a partnership of 59 runs which brought the Sunrisers within touching distance. Nevertheless, both Shakib and Williamson was nipped out by Narine and Andre Russell respectively which gave the Knights a ray of hope of getting a foothold into the game. Yusuf Pathan spanked a couple of boundaries and got SRH home with an over to spare.

Here is what Dinesh Karthik, the skipper of the Kolkata Knight Riders, said

Basically, we wanted to send the batsmen according to the situation. When left arm spinner was bowling, we wanted Narine to go out there and express himself. I was thinking 160-170 would be a good score to defend but I don’t think we batted as well as we could have. We play as we see, we try to see which bowlers are not at their best and try to go after them.

Here is what Kane Williamson, the skipper of the Sunrisers Hyderabad, said

Obviously nice to win three in a row. Best part was the improvement from the previous game. Highlight was the fielding. Bowlers have been outstanding. Nice that they’ve been able to do that consistently. The way they’ve responded in these three games has been brilliant. Suppose the guys are used to playing on very good surfaces. Wasn’t a lot of turn for the spinners but they hit good lengths. KKR are a really strong team. It was nice to pull that back and chase the total down.

Player of the Match: Billy Stanlake

Nice to get out there and get a couple of wickets. My job is pretty simple, to go out there and get wickets. We thought it was going to come through nicely. It sat up a bit, sort of tennis-bouncy. Two great catches, owe Manish Pandey a couple of beers. Those were two great catches.

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