David Warner ignored Kane and his team got caned for that error as the Sunrisers Hyderabad suffered a 10-run defeat against Kolkata Knight Riders in Chennai on Sunday.
The Knights defended their 187/6 intelligently, with captain Eoin Morgan marshalling his resources remarkably well. Despite a late charge, the Kane Williamson-less Sunrisers could only reach 177/5 in 20 overs.
Losing both their openers — Warner (3) and Wriddhiman Saha (7) — within the first three overs made the Sunrisers’ job doubly difficult. But Manish Pandey (61 not out off 44 balls) and Jonny Bairstow (55 off 40 balls) batted gallantly to pull back their team on track with a 92-run partnership for the third wicket.
But once Bairstow departed in the 13th over, Sunrisers wobbled in chase. Though Pandey was still going strong, he did not find enough support from the other end with Mohammad Nabi (14) and Vijay Shankar (11) not doing enough.
Young Abdul Samad (19 off 8 balls) tried to force things with two gutsy sixes off Pat Cummins in the 19th over, but it was too little too late. With 22 required off the last over, Andre Russell conceded 11 to get the Knights off to a winning start in IPL 2021.
Among the Knights’ bowlers, seamer Prasidh Krishna was the most impressive, constantly troubling batsmen with the extra bounce that he generated off the pitch and picking up the wickets of Warner and Nabi.
Wrong pick
With the margin of loss being just 10 runs, Sunrisers would be regretting not including Williamson in the XI.
They preferred Afghan all-rounder Nabi over the New Zealand captain, perhaps thinking that playing both Bairstow and Williamson would have disturbed the balance of the team. But with Shankar and Samad being good enough to bowl a couple of overs each, they perhaps could have done without Nabi’s four overs of spin.
Instead, the class of Williamson would have taken the quality of their batting line-up up several notches, more so because their lower middle-order lacks experience.
Master at work
How good was Morgan with his bowling changes! Like a master chef who knows what to add, when to add and how much to add to his recipe, Morgan used his bowlers skilfully, using the element of surprise perfectly and knowing exactly whom to turn to at different situations.
The ploy of starting with Harbhajan Singh almost gave them big fish Warner’s wicket, but Cummins dropped the catch at point.
Again, when Bairstow and Pandey were going great guns, Morgan brought back Cummins for an over. The ace Australian pacer dried up the runs for five balls before tempting a well-set Bairstow to play a loose shot and get caught a backward point.
Retaining Russell for the last over was also a masterstroke.
Morgan used six bowlers, with Harbhajan getting only one over. To be fair to the off-spinner, he should have got a couple of overs more, but then the captain knows best.
Rana on rampage
The Knights were good with the bat, but then they could have posted a bigger total for sure had they not lost wickets in a jiffy after the 15th over.
They decided to begin with Shubman Gill (15) and Nitish Rana (80 off 56 balls) and the duo made the most of some rudderless bowling from the Sunrisers seamers.
But despite one opener falling cheaply, the Knights had a decent opening stand of 53 because the other opener, Rana, chanced his arms against anything that begged to be hit. Rana blossomed further in No.3 batsman Rahul Tripathi’s company, their 104-run partnership being the spine of the Knights’ innings.
Both Rana and Tripathi (53 off 29 balls) middled the ball well and most of their attempted big hits came off.
At 145/1 after 15 overs, Knights looked good for a 200-plus total, but Tripathi’s dismissal in the second ball of the 16th over triggered a mini collapse. From the 16th to the 18th over, Knights lost three wickets making only 17 runs off 18 balls.
That they still got a challenging total was because of Dinesh Karthik’s cameo of 22 not out off nine balls.
