IPL 2022, SRH vs KKR, Top Performances: Andre Russell’s all-round 49* & 3-22, Tim Southee's 2-23 and Umran Malik's 3-33 are top three performances. KKR beat SRH and have 12 points.
Brief Scores: KKR 177/6 (Russell 49, Billings 34, Umran 3-33) beat SRH 123/8 (Abhishek 43, Markram 32, Russell 3-22, Southee 2-23) by 54 runs
Player of the Match: Andre Russell for his all-round hand of 49* off 28 balls & 3-22
As we head towards the business end of Indian Premier League (IPL) 2022, the two teams stranded at number 6 and 7, Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) and Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), faced each other at the Maharashtra Cricket Association (MCA) Stadium in Pune on Saturday in the hope of making it to the playoffs.
In the last five games played at the MCA Stadium, the teams batting first have won all the matches. In terms of the teams playing on Saturday, MCA Stadium has been a happy hunting ground for KKR, where they have won seven of their eight games. SRH, in contrast, have only won once in their five matches at the Pune wicket. Head-to-head, KKR have the upper hand over Sunrisers, as the Knight Riders have won 14, while SRH have just won 8 of the 22 matches they have squared off against each other.
Shreyas Iyer, after winning the toss opted to bat first. KKR went into this match with two changes, as the injured Pat Cummins was replaced by Sam Billings and Sheldon Jackson made way for Umesh Yadav. From the Orange Army dugout, both the injured players, Washington Sundar and Thangarasu Natarajan were back in the squad along with Marco Jansen.
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KKR overcome SRH by 54 runs
Losing wickets in the powerplay has been one of the major headaches for KKR this season and the pattern continued as they lost Venkatesh Iyer in the second over of the match. Thereafter, India veteran Ajinkya Rahane and Nitish Rana stitched a brilliant 33-ball 48 run partnership which was taking the game away from SRH. Later, running hard for a single, Rahane picked up a hamstring injury which restricted him from running the twos and threes and forced him to take the aerial route.
Knight Riders were going comfortably at nine runs per over, and were 63-1 after seven overs. In search of a wicket, SRH brought speedster Umran Malik and the young gun didn’t disappoint, dismissing Nitish Rana and the injured Rahane in the same over. Bowling his second over on the trot, Umran sent KKR captain Shreyas back to the pavilion.
Kolkata’s innings derailed quite quickly as they went from 65-1 to 83-4 at the end of the 10th over. With eight overs left in the bank and 96 runs on the board, the dangerous Andre Russell came in the middle along with Sam billings. Billings and Russell both took some time to settle, courtesy some tight bowling from the SRH unit. In fact, both the fearsome batters were batting at a strike rate of below 100 at one point. Russell and Billings rather batted out of their skin, and collaborated for a 63-run crucial stand for the sixth wicket off just 44 balls.
Later, a well-settled Andre Russell unleashed his fury, as he clobbered Washington Sundar for three massive sixes accumulating 20 runs in the 20th over, taking KKR’s total to a very defendable 177 runs.
Chasing 178, needing almost 9 runs per over, SRH aspired for a solid opening partnership. Their out of form captain, Kane Williamson added insult to injury as his slow innings of 9(17) put pressure on Sunrisers. After Kane was dismissed, Rahul Tripathi and Abhishek Sharma tried to up the ante but Rahul was dismissed thanks to a blinder of a catch from Tim Southee. SRH kept losing wickets almost every alternate over and never got going. In a chase of 178, a team needs a minimum of two fifty-plus partnerships but the opening stand of 30 runs was their highest partnership in the run chase. Apart from Abhishek, Aiden Markram and Shashank Singh, none of the batters scored in double digits and that pretty much summed up Sunrisers Hyderbad’s match against KKR.
Except for Sunil Narine, all the KKR bowlers, bowled with an economy of less than seven runs per over and were able to restrict SRH to 123/8 at the end of the second innings.
With six teams still having a chance to make it to the playoffs, KKR winning by a huge margin of 54 runs ensured they got the much-needed positive net run rate (0.160) and closed the match with 12 points and moved to sixth position in the points table.
Top Three Performances from KKR vs SRH, 61st game TATA IPL 2022:
Russell “Muscles” SRH with his all-round skills
Coming into bat in the 11th over, with 96 runs on the board, the stage was set for a typical Dre Russ innings. Though it was a very ‘Un-Russell’ like innings initially, as the West Indian all-rounder took his time against SRH bowlers. Marco Jansen and Natarajan didn’t allow Andre Russell to get underneath those thunderbolt yorkers. The plan from SRH was clear, as they targeted Dre Russ with a barrage of yorkers initially. Playing at a strike of under 100, Russell smartly battled out the difficult phase. As Russell’s wicket there would have left KKR with a score below 150.
At the start of the 17th over, Russell had scored 17 runs off 14 balls, and was now well set to wreak havoc in the final four overs. Russell knew the SRH bowlers will go for yorkers and he was waiting patiently with a crouching stance in an an aim to convert those yorkers into low full tosses. SRH bowlers just did that and boy! Russell started smacking the leather of the white Kookaburra with his strong bottom-hand whips.
After a quiet 17th and 18th over, where Natarajan and Bhuvneshwar Kumar absolutely nailed the yorkers, the calculation of SRH captain Kane Williamson went wrong. With Washington Sundar standing at his bowling mark to bowl the 20th over and Russell, with 30 runs off 23 balls, was licking his lips to dismantle Sundar all over the park. Russell, waiting in his crouching position, ensured that he converted all of Sundar’s fast off-spinning yorkers into low full-tosses. He slog-swept and muscled three massive sixes in the final over, however, missed out on his well-deserved fifty by just one run.
Russell’s carnage of 49 off just 28 balls ensured Kolkata were past the 170-run mark which was going to be difficult on this wicket.
The all-rounder Russell wasn’t just done yet after that blistering knock. Coming into bowl inside the powerplay, looking to draw first blood, he clean bowled the struggling Kane Williamson, who was looking to play a scoop shot off a rather straight delivery bowled at the stumps. Williamson missed and Russell hit the stumps. Bowling an economical spell of two overs and giving away just 10 runs, Russell was called up again in the 18th over with the game almost done and dusted as SRH were 107-5.
Russell was hungry for more as he put the final nail in the coffin, dismissing Sundar and Jansen in a span of five deliveries. With these three wickets, Russell broke into the top 10 wicket-takers list of Tata IPL 2022. He now has 17 wickets which is also Russell’s highest-ever in any IPL season. Russell also became only the fifth player in the history of IPL to score 300 runs and take 15 wickets in an IPL season with Shane Watson, Dwayne Bravo, Jacques Kallis (twice) and Sunil Narine being the other four players.
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Umran’s fast and fiery spell derails KKR’s innings
KKR’s ship was in cruise control mode at the end of the 7th over mark with 63 runs on the board for the loss of just one wicket. Scoring freely at 9 runs per over, SRH desperately needed to put the brakes on the cruising ship. The speedster Umran Malik, fired bullets with ball in hand. The field setting hinted towards a short delivery against Nitish Rana, who is quite weak playing the bouncers and was already on the backfoot, and Umran didn’t disappoint; he bowled a short delivery which didn’t quite rise up and wasn’t a bouncer by any means, but Rana had lost the mental battle there and was in an awkward position even before the ball arrived and could only manage to give catching practice to Shashank who was marshalled at the deep backward square leg boundary.
Bowling his sixth ball of the innings, Umran dismissed the struggling Rahane with another short delivery. This was a ‘hit me out of the park’ short delivery and if it was the Ajinkya of old times, he would have smacked that ball with a square cut for a six over covers. Unfortunately, this Rahane couldn’t manage to get the power behind the lofted square cut and what we saw in the field from Shashank Singh was absolutely magic. For a moment, Rahane thought it was a six but Shashank ran to his right from deep backward point on the fence towards deep cover point region and plucked the catch out of thin air. This was more of Shashank’s wicket than of Malik’s.
Coming into bowl against Shreyas, whom Umran had dismissed with an absolute thunderbolt yorker in their previous encounter, Malik had the upper hand. Umran bowled a 147.8 kmph delivery full and straight at Iyer’s pad and the KKR captain flicked it straight to the man positioned at deep mid-wicket boundary for a rather straightforward catch. This was not a wicket delivery by any standards but such has been the story of Umran’s all three wickets in this game. More than the deliveries, it was rather the mental fear he had established in the batters mind that resulted in KKR’s batters playing poor shots to ordinary balls.
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Tim Southee brings his experience to the table
Tim Southee was called upon by KKR captain Shreyas Iyer to dismiss either of Tripathi or Abhishek, as the last time KKR played SRH, Tripathi had smothered the game away from KKR chasing a similar total. Southee didn’t disappoint either and dismissed the free-flowing Tripathi with an absolute miracle of a catch in his follow through. If there were any exams for fast reflexes, Southee would have aced the subject for such fast reflexes. It was a length ball which Tripathi tried to drive, the ball was travelling at the speed of knots, Southee in his follow through after the delivery moved to his right and caught it above his left shoulder with both the hands. Such kind of catches just stick to your hand, and this one definitely would have given Southee a bruising.
Coming to bowl the final over of his quota of four overs, the match was already done and dusted but Southee ensured to add one more wicket to his tally of 12 wickets. Shashank Singh who didn’t have any option, tried to loft a six downtown, miscued it big time and the ball was high up in the night sky doing aerobics but Shreyas is too good a fielder to miss such catches as he completed the formalities with a safe catch. Southee’s economical spell of 2-23 was crucial as KKR were a bowler short with Umesh sustaining an injury during fielding.
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How the points table looks for SRH and KKR
SRH have gone down to the eighth place in the points table after this loss and have a net run rate of -0.270 while KKR have climbed one place to the sixth position with a NRR of +0.160.
What’s to come
A double-header Sunday awaits the fans as clash as Gujarat Titans take on Chennai Super Kings in the afternoon game at the iconic Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai. The second game of the day will be played a little distance away at the Brabourne Stadium between Lucknow Super Giants and Rajasthan Royals.
Here are some of the top twitter reactions from SRH vs KKR 61 game of IPL 2022 as KKR beat SRH and move to 6th place in points table with 12 points:
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