Ishan Kishan led the Sunrisers Hyderabad to their first win of the season with a commanding 65-run victory over Kolkata Knight Riders, as the visitors set a target of 227 and bundled out the hosts for just 161 at Eden Gardens in Kolkata on Thursday.
SRH powered to a massive 226, built on Heinrich Klaasen’s 52 after blistering starts from Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma, who scored 46 and 48 respectively.
Kishan credited his unit for getting off in the tournament as SRH produced an all-round showing to outplay KKR in their own backyard.
“I was happy with everyone putting the effort.I don’t think the pitch wasn’t that good. Head and Abhishek made our game easy. It was a complete team effort,” Kishan said.
Nitish Kumar Reddy added a valuable 31 to
lift SRH to their imposing total, despite Blessing Muzarabani’s four-wicket haul.
In response, Finn Allen gave KKR a flying start, taking David Payne for 24 runs in the first over of the chase, but he fell to Harsh Dubey in the very next over.
“Everyone was putting their energy, and that was something I asked for before the game. And I was just happy to see all of them putting their effort,” he began
“Our plan was to take wickets. Harsh just bowled that ball and we were lucky to get that wicket. Harsh has been doing well for his domestic team as well.”
“I would like to talk about Shivang, he bowled exceptionally well. He was bowling with big heart. He did the job for us,” the wicket-keeper batter added as he remarked the spinner’s work towards the success of the Hyderabad-based franchise.
“Fielding is something we need to work on as a team. 10-20 runs makes a huge difference,” the stand-in skipper said reflecting on parameters his side would seek to improve on going ahead in the season.
Raghuvanshi’s innings ended on 52 after a bout of miscommunication led to his dismissal, before Anukul Roy was caught behind for a duck off Nitish Kumar Reddy.
Reddy struck again to remove Rinku Singh for 36, bringing Sunil Narine to the crease to support Ramandeep Singh in KKR’s bid to keep up with the asking rate. Eshan Malinga, though, derailed their chase by dismissing Narine for 12 and Ramandeep for 10, further denting KKR’s hopes.
Jaydev Unadkat then returned to polish off the tail, removing Kartik Tyagi and Varun Chakravarthy as SRH bowled out KKR 65 runs short of the target. Unadkat finished with three wickets and will enter his next match on a hat-trick, while Reddy and Malinga claimed two wickets apiece.
