Calcutta: Shah Rukh Khan perhaps would have been the happiest of all Kolkata Knight Riders fans had he been present at Eden Gardens on Sunday.

Nonetheless, he will certainly be happy, and more importantly, a relieved man as his knights ensured that they got most of the things right in this must-win encounter and eventually pulled off a crucial 22-run win against the Sunrisers Hyderabad. The victory confirmed their presence at the IPL IX play-offs.

It's Mission Eliminator now for the Knights.

The batsmen, after being put in, put up a relatively better show except the last few overs where they could manage only few runs. But the bowlers proved again that if this team goes past 170, it's never easy to beat them. That too, on a sluggish wicket unless you have a Virat Kohli, AB de Villiers or Chris Gayle in your ranks... Unless you have Virat Kohli, AB de Villiers or Chris Gayle in your ranks...

Questions were being raised about how effective Sunil Narine had been with his reworked action. But probably for the nth time in the IPL, the off-spinner proved why he is the Knights' crisis man.

Having removed the Sunrisers' best batsman - David Warner - with a well tossed up delivery, Narine finished with figures of 4-0-26-3 that played a huge part in restricting the Sunrisers to 149 for eight.

Equally effective was young Kuldeep Yadav too, who having played just one game till Sunday, justified his presence in place of the seasoned Piyush Chawla. Accounting for Shikhar Dhawan, who had taken it upon himself to help his team cross the barrier, and the quality player in Kane Williamson, the left-arm spinner was the key in checking the visitors' run flow.

Some credit needs to be given to Shakib-al Hasan as well. He certainly made amends by removing the dangerous-looking Yuvraj Singh at a critical stage of the game.

The result is another proof of the Sunrisers' middle order's inability to bail the side out in times of crises. This might well make them suffer in the play-offs too.

Earlier, Robin Uthappa took the Knights off to a flier, hitting Bhuvneshwar Kumar for three crisp boundaries on the off side. As many as 13 came off the very first over of the game.

Uthappa looked to be in ominous touch and with Gautam Gambhir too steady at the other end, it appeared as if the Knights were set to getting a much-needed positive start from their openers.

But yet again, Uthappa made a hash of the wonderful start with a miscued shot. He hit a needless stroke coming down the track, giving Barinder Sran his first wicket. The Sunrisers too were relieved to see that the pair couldn't cause much damage.

Colin Munro, coming in place of Morne Morkel, needed to show a bit of patience on this wicket. He didn't and was duly dismissed by Deepak Hooda, who struck again soon after to remove captain Gambhir.

At 57 for three in the eighth over, the Sunrisers were well on top as things started looking critical for the Knights. Fortunately, for the home team, Manish Pandey and Yusuf Pathan played just the kind of cricket required on a wicket that was a bit sluggish. More importantly, they tackled the rivals' trump card Mustafizur Rahman intelligently, avoiding unnecessary risks off the cutters the Bangladeshi left-armer churned out.

Maybe captain Warner could have brought Mustafizur a bit earlier than in the 11th over.