Twitter Reactions: A collective bowling effort gives KKR a comfortable win over SRH

Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) have one step into the playoffs now thanks to a comfortable win over Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH). Given their brilliant net run-rate, even any other team ties at 14 points with them now, they can easily go through. The win was nicely set up by the bowling attack who collectively did a good job to restrict SRH to 115 on a sluggish surface and then the batters chased it down in the final over.

Earlier, SRH won the toss and opted to bat first only to struggle right through their innings. They lost Wriddhiman Saha in the first over of the innings. Tim Southee pinned him in front of the stumps only for the batsman not to opt for review and later see that the tracker predicted the ball to go over the stumps. The SRH skipper Kane Williamson then came on to bat and exhibited class.

After starting off slowly, he took on Shivam Mavi in the 6th over smashing him for four boundaries in a single over. But he got out in the very next over trying to steal a single thanks to a direct him from Shakib Al Hasan. SRH had lost Jason Roy also by then and were struggling on 38/3 at one stage. There were no partnerships at any stage of the innings with the troika of KKR spinners, Shakib, Varun Chakaravarthy and Sunil Narine spinning a web.

They continued to pick wickets at regular intervals and only Abdul Samad looked like taking on the bowlers. The youngster scored 25 runs off 18 balls with three sixes and one felt, he would take his side to close to 140. But it wasn’t to be as he too was holed out in the 18th over off Tim Southee.

There was no acceleration right through the innings for SRH as they crawled to 115/8 in their 20 overs. For KKR, each of Southee, Varun and Mavi picked up two wickets while Shakib picked up one.

Gill’s half-century takes KKR home

The chase of 116 runs shouldn’t have troubled KKR at all and in the end, it didn’t. But at the halfway stage, there were some jitters in the camp when the score was 44/2 after 10 overs. SRH had a brilliant phase post the powerplay overs where they conceded only 8 runs in four overs while scalping the wicket of Rahul Tripathi.

Nitish Rana was struggling to get the ball away while Shubman Gill was finding the fielders. However, the latter opened his arms up in the next few overs to launch the attack on the bowlers. A flurry of boundaries followed to make the game a no contest as it undid all the hard work.

Gill slammed a brilliant half-century, finally finding some form in the UAE leg. But he couldn’t finish the job getting out on 57. Though KKR needed 23 more runs to win still, they did get home in the final over with Dinesh Karthik making sure there were no last minute twists in the game.

Here’s how Twitter reacted: