The Sunrisers Hyderabad captain David Warner was noticeable upset when his pace battery conceded too many runs during the Kolkata Knight Riders innings in their IPL match at the Eden Gardens.
He didn’t scream at his players like some of the other captains in the league, but he was grimacing throughout after his pacers finished their overs. At one point, KKR were on the mat when they lost four wickets within the fourteenth over.
But from there, the hosts added enough to put pressure on the Sunrisers. And when they came out to bat, a disturbed Warner’s off-stump was uprooted by Umesh Yadav. The ball swung late and flummoxed the Australian completely.
Even after getting out, Warner nodded his head in appreciation. Somewhere in the bottom of his heart, he knew the match was as good as over, as his team didn’t get the kind of start which was needed to chase down a winning total of 168.
In a way, Warner’s premonition was right. The Sunrisers kept losing wickets consistently. It was only Moises Henriques who fought a lone battle. Towards the end, leg-spinner Karn Sharma tried to lift his team with some lusty blows, but it wasn’t of any consequence. By that time, the Sunrisers were fighting for a lost cause.
Earlier, the KKR batting department did what the Hyderabad outfit couldn’t do while chasing. Starting from Robin Uthappa, skipper Gautam Gambhir to Manish Pandey, all of them got to their thirties, which was good enough for the lower-order batsman like Yusuf Pathan to come out with flying colours.
With this 35-run win over the Sunrisers, KKR are well-placed in the top half of the points table. The good news for the defending champions is that they learnt to live within their match-winning spinner Sunil Narine, who is banned by the BCCI from not bowling his off-spinners.
In his place, Brad Hogg is just doing fine. From his four overs, he took two wickets and gave away only 17 runs. As far as the Sunrisers are concerned, they will have to fall back on a different game plan to ensure more consistency from their remaining five encounters.
