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Kolkata Knight Riders pulled off a thriller in Abu Dhabi as it beat the Sunrisers Hyderabad in a thrilling match by a super over. SRH skipper David Warner won the toss and asked KKR to bat first .
For KKR Rahul Tripathi 23 off 16 and a slow Shubman Gill 36 off 37 balls gave the team a decent start of 48 runs for the first wicket. Nitish Rana scored ( 29 ) off 20 balls. The innings neededa push in the middle as overs went by quickly, Andre Russell had the opportunity to get back into form but he wasted his chance by holing out for 9 off 11 balls. It was left to former skipper Dinesh Karthik and current skipper Eoin Morgan to give the side some total to bowl at. Karthik was innovative and scored an unbeaten 29 off mere 14 balls. Morgan was out of the last ball of the innings but not before making a useful 34 off 23 balls. KKR finishing strongly in the end with a total of 163/ 5 in their twenty overs.
For SRH the wicket-takers were Thangarasu Natarajan 2/ 40 ( 4 overs), Rashid Khan 1/ 28 (4 overs), Vijay Shankar 1/20 ( 4 overs), Basil Thampi 1/ 46 (4 overs)
SRH in reply changed their batting order, Kane Williamson was promoted to open the innings with Jonny Bairstow and it looked that the side was on its way t win as the duo put on 58 for the first wicket. Bairstow ( 36), Williamson ( 29) could not carry on. Priyam Garg ( 4) , Manish Pandey ( 6 ) , Vijay Shankar ( 7 ) fell cheaply. Skipper David Warner tried hard and remained unbeaten for 47 . Abdul Samad played a cameo 23 of 15 balls as the team finished on 163 / 6 . Meaning the match moving towards the super over. The SRH batting was rocked by a sensational spell of fast bowling by Kiwi Lockie Ferguson . He was fast and furious and used his yorkers to great effect and his spell was brilliant 3/ 15 of 3 overs.
In the super over too, ferguson made his impact . He cleaned up Warner, who tried to run it down to third man but missed and was bowled, off the first ball. Two balls later, Abdul Samad attempted the cross-batted slog but missed and was bowled as Sunrisers crashed for just two runs in the Super Over, which KKR ( Dinesh Karthik and Eoin Morgan chased down with ease to seal a thrilling win. Ferguson picked up an incredible 5 wickets in the match . Two in the super over.
Lockie Ferguson’s impressive arrival has lent teeth to the KKR bowling with Pat Cummins struggling for wickets. The KKR bolwing figures read, Lockie Ferguson 3/ 15 ( 3 overs) , Pat Cummins 1/ 28 ( 4 overs), Shivam Mavi 1/ 34 ( 3 overs) , Varun Chakravarthy 1/ 32 ( 4 overs)
