Sunrisers Hyderabad 176 for 3 (Tripathi 71, Markram 68*, Russell 2-20) beat Kolkata Knight Riders 175 for 8 (Rana 54, Russell 49*, Natarajan 3-37) by seven wickets
Markram took the lead after Tripathi’s dismissal following their 94-run third-wicket stand and finished the game with 2.1 overs to spare by smacking Pat Cummins for 4, 6, 6. Such was his dominance after Tripathi’s wicket that Nicholas Pooran could score only five runs in a 43-run stand with Markram.
Natarajan-led seamers trouble Knight Riders
Knight Riders made three changes to their XI, handing debuts to Aaron Finch and Aman Khan and bringing back Sheldon Jackson. That meant there was no place for Ajinkya Rahane in the side. But Finch’s stay was not a long one – he got an inside edge to the wicketkeeper off Marco Jansen in the second over.
T Natarajan, coming on as first change, then took two wickets in the fifth over to snag two left-hand batters. Venkatesh Iyer (bowled) was Natarajan’s first scalp, followed by No. 4 Sunil Narine, who sliced a slower full toss to cover two balls later.
With Knight Riders at 31 for 3, Williamson’s decision of bowling first at the toss seemed vindicated. In the tenth over, Umran Malik bowled a 148.8kph yorker to bamboozle Shreyas Iyer on 28 and leave his poles flattened on the ground.
Rana-Russell put up a fight
With scores of 10, 0, 8 and 30 in his last four innings, it was time for Rana to step up with his team in trouble. Although he wasn’t timing it perfectly, he was finding the gaps. He struck 54 off just 36 balls even though his control percentage, according to ESPNcricinfo’s data, was a poor 72%. He was helped by Sunrisers bowling just two bouncers at him, despite him producing 42 false shots off the 100 bouncers he has faced overall at the IPL.
It was Natarajan once again who dismissed him in the 18th over, but with Russell still in the middle, Sunrisers could not afford to breathe easy. Spinner J Suchith, playing in place of the injured Washington Sundar, was handed the ball for the 20th over, and Russell punished him for 6, 6, 4 off the last three balls to set Sunrisers a target of 176.
Sunrisers’ openers fail
Both Abhishek Sharma and Williamson were in top form entering the game, but Cummins and Russell sent them back cheaply, leaving Sunrisers at 39 for 2 inside the powerplay.
Even though Umesh Yadav did not get a wicket in his opening over, Cummins enjoyed the reward of Umesh’s tight bowling as Abhishek tried to take the Australian on in his first over. Coming around the stumps, Cummins bowled a length ball that angled in, and Abhishek dragged it back onto his stumps.
Williamson was scratchy through the powerplay. If it wasn’t for Tripathi’s 12 in his first six balls, Sunrisers’ run rate would have been under six when Williamson was dismissed by Russell. The Sunrisers captain dragged a pull from outside off onto his stumps for a 16-ball 17. But then came the counterattack.
It was Kuldeep Yadav who had taken it out on his former team when Knight Riders played Delhi Capitals and, on Friday, it was Tripathi who plundered them. Tripathi – who Knight Riders lost out on following a fierce three-team bidding war at the auction – began his innings by dispatching Umesh and Cummins for fours, but it was his pulled six off Russell in the sixth over that broke really the shackles.
Tripathi then hit debutant Aman for six and four, and tonked Varun for two sixes and a four in the spinners’ first over, which went for 18.
Against Varun, in particular, Tripathi used his big stride to get to the pitch of the ball and then used his bottom hand to go over the infield. By the time Varun finished his second over – the tenth of the chase – Tripathi was raising his bat for a 21-ball fifty.
Markram was slow off the blocks, but he could afford that with Tripathi’s free-flowing strokes from the other end. He too was brutal on Varun, clubbing him for six and four in a 14-run second over, and then took out Umesh with a hat-trick of fours in his return spell.
Tripathi was in a hurry to finish the game as the duo approached a century stand, but he fell trying to hit Russell for back-to-back sixes in the 14th over. Out to long-on for a 37-ball 71, Tripathi’s dismissal gave Knight Riders a sniff with Sunrisers still needing 49 to win with 36 balls to spare.
But Markram wasn’t going to let it get close. He dispatched Varun for another six and four (Varun would finish the evening with an economy rate of 15) to bring the required run rate under six with 24 balls to go. After reaching his fifty in 31 balls, he sealed the win in the 18th over.
Sreshth Shah is a sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo. @sreshthx