Kolkata Knight Riders notched up their third consecutive victory of the season with a commanding 7-wicket win over Sunrisers Hyderabad at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium on Sunday in their IPL 2026 encounter.
Despite a rapid half-century from Travis Head, SRH were restricted to 165, with Varun Chakravarthy leading the attack with three wickets, while Sunil Narine and Karthik Tyagi claimed two each. Angkrish Raghuvanshi’s fifty then guided KKR to the target with 10 balls remaining.
Chakravarthy noted that spinners tend to get into the tournament after a couple of games, year after year, highlighting his own turn in fortunes this season.
“I’ve been saying this every year. Initially when IPL starts, the first four matches will be flat wickets.
It’s very tough for spinners to come into the game. Happened for every spinner. As the tournament goes on, spinners come into the game,” the spinner said.
Openers Abhishek Sharma and Head provided a blistering start, putting on 44 runs before Abhishek was dismissed by Kartik Tyagi for 15 off 10 balls. Ishan Kishan came in to join Head, who stormed to a half-century in just 22 deliveries. His explosive innings ended when Chakravarthy struck, with Cameron Green completing a straightforward catch to remove the Australian.
Heinrich Klaasen’s innings was brief, cut short at 11 by a stunning one-handed catch in the deep from Rovman Powell off Green’s bowling. From there, SRH’s innings began to unravel. Smaran Ravichandran was dismissed by Chakravarthy for 4 off 4, with Ajinkya Rahane holding on to a safe catch.
Chakravarthy then picked up his third wicket as Rahane pulled off an even better catch to send Aniket Verma back for 6. Narine, a long-time KKR mainstay, celebrated his 200th IPL wicket by bowling Salil Arora for 2 off 6 balls.
Narine struck again to remove Kishan for a well-made 42 off 29, with Anukul Roy taking the catch. Roy then dismissed Cummins for 10 with a sharp caught-and-bowled, plunging SRH into deeper trouble.
Vaibhav Arora accounted for Shivang Kumar for just 1, with Raghuvanshi taking the catch behind the stumps. SRH were eventually bowled out for 165 when Tyagi removed Harshal Patel for 6.
In response, Rahane opened the chase alongside Finn Allen. Cummins conceded 27 runs in an over to Allen but eventually dismissed the Kiwi for 29. Rahane and Raghuvanshi then consolidated with an 84-run partnership before the KKR skipper fell to Sakib Hussain for 43.
Raghuvanshi’s fine knock ended on 59 when he was dismissed by Shivang Kumar, after which Rinku Singh and Green, unbeaten on 22 and 3 respectively, guided KKR comfortably over the line.
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