Kolkata Knight Riders kicked off their Indian Premier League 2024 marketing campaign with a thrilling 4-run win over Sunrisers Hyderabad at Eden Gardens on Saturday, March 23.
Andre Russell displayed his power hitting by smashing 64* off simply 25 balls and debutant Phil Salt scored an excellent 54 to assist Kolkata put up 208 whereas batting first. Rusell additionally impressed with a ball with two large wickets and Harshit Rana bagged three to limit Hyderabad to 204.
Chasing a mammoth goal, Klaasen smashed 63 off simply 29 balls and virtually boosted SRH to a sensational comeback win however pacer Harshit Rana defended seven runs off the final 5 balls to enhance KKR to a thrilling win.
Big-money Australian signings Pat Cummins (INR 20.5 crore) and Mitchell Starc (INR 24.75 crore) failed to impression their first recreation of the season. Cummins took a wicket for 32 however missed a shot on the final ball of the sport and Starc scored 6* off 3 balls however conceded 51 runs off his 4 overs with no wicket.
KKR captain Shreyas Iyer additionally failed to impress on his return from harm as T Natarajan dismissed him on a two-ball duck. Rinku Singh smashed 23 off 15 and a new-singing Ramandeep Singh smashed 35 off simply 17 balls to assist KKR put up an enormous complete.
Natarajan took three wickets for 32 and spinner Mayank Markande, who began forward of Washington Sundar, bagged two for 39 for SRH. Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Marco Jansen proved expensive and failed to scalp any wickets.
Mayank Agarwal and impression sub Abhishek Sharma gave Sunrisers a powerful begin by including 60 runs for the opening wickets inside powerplay overs. Kolkata made a comeback with well timed wickets within the center overs with Russell selecting large wickets of Abhishek and Abdul Samad.
But Heinrich Klassen and new commerce signing Shahbaz Ahmed added 58 runs for the sixth wicket in simply 16 balls. Klaasen smashed Harshit Rana for a six when SRH wanted 13 runs to win the sport within the final six balls. But Harshit dismissed each Klaasen and Shahbaz within the final over to take the sport for KKR.
Kolkata Knight Riders Playing XI: Philip Salt (wk), Venkatesh Iyer, Shreyas Iyer (c), Nitish Rana, Rinku Singh, Andre Russell, Sunil Narine, Ramandeep Singh (substituted by Suyash Sharma), Mitchell Starc, Harshit Rana, Varun Chakaravarthy.
Sunrisers Hyderabad Playing XI: Mayank Agarwal, Rahul Tripathi, Aiden Markram, Heinrich Klaasen (wk), Abdul Samad, Shahbaz Ahmed, Marco Jansen, Pat Cummins (c), Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mayank Markande, T Natarajan (Substituted by Abhishek Sharma).
