#TATAIPL 2022 : Match 61 : Andre Russell’s All-Round Fire Power Proves To Be A Game Changer, Kolkata Knight Riders Beat Faltering Sunrisers Hyderabad By 54 Runs

Picture : Twitter / IPL

Kolkata Knight Riders scored an 54 run victory over the faltering Sunrisers Hyderabad by 54 runs at the MCA stadium in Pune adding to the suspense over play-offs spots .

KKR skipper Shreyas Iyer won the toss and batted first. Opener Venkatesh Iyer who has struggled this season was out early for (7). In and out of the playing eleven is doing Ajinkya Rahane no good . Once again Rahane failed to score big and was out for ( 28). Nitish Rana (26). Skipper Shreyas Iyer out for ( 15) . Sam Billings chipped in with ( 34) he too has been in and out of the playing eleven. Rinku Singh ( 5). KKR innings in tatters needed the momentum and the powerful big-hitting Andre Russell came to the party . Russell gave the KKR the much needed fire power with yet another blazing innings a 28 ball unbeaten 49 ( 3 fours , 4 sixes) as KKR finished at 177/ 6 in their 20 overs. At one stage KKR it seemed would not cross 150 . They were at one stage 94/ 5 before Russell came in and proved t o be the game changer.

SRH bowling figures were : Umran Malik 3/ 33 ( 4 overs) Bhuvneshwar Kumar 1/27 (4 overs) , Marco Jansen 1/ 30 (4 overs), T Natarajan 1/ 43 ( 4 overs) , Washington Sundar 0/ 40 ( 4 overs)

In reply SRH struggled , With out of form Skipper Kane Williamson it was bound to get difficult and it was indeed the case. The SRH batting flopped again. Williamson has failed to fire this season and was out for mere 9 this time. Abhishek Sharma tried hard for his 28 ball 43 with ( 4 fours, 2 sixes). In- from Rahul Tripathi was out for ( 9) . Big South African Aiden Markram contributed ( 34) , Nicholas Pooran ( 2), Washington Sundar ( 4), Shashank Singh ( 11) meant SRH could manage 123 / 8 in their 20 overs.

For KKR : Andre Russell after blitz with bat came out with solid all-round show with the ball with figures of 3/22 ( 4 overs). Tim Southee 2/ 23 ( 4 overs) , Umesh Yadav 1/ 19 ( 4 overs) , Sunil Narine 1/ 34 ( 4 overs) , Varun Chakaravarthy 1/ 25 ( 4 overs)

KKR now have 12 points from 13 games with a net run-rate of +0.160 to jump to sixth place.

With Rajasthan Royals (14 from 12) and RCB (14 from 13 games) having chance to move up, even a victory is unlikely to be enough for KKR to advance to the play-offs.

For Sunrisers, 10 points from 12 games with a dismal NRR of -0.270 means that even two big wins and 14 points might not be enough after five straight defeats.