On Thursday night, Kings XI Punjab (KXIP) suffered a defeat in a low-scoring game against the hosts Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) at Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium (Uppal, Hyderabad).
KXIP captain Ravichandran Ashwin decided to field first after winning the toss. After dismissing the opponent top-order batsmen very early, KXIP restricted the hosts for 132/8 in 20 overs.
Despite having a good opening start in the tough batting pitch, the visitors failed to secure a victory as they were bundled out for just 119 runs in 19.2 overs. The hosts SRH won by 13 runs in that low-scoring entertaining game.
Now, we will briefly talk about some important reasons for KXIP’s defeat in this match.
Poor fielding (catches dropped)
KXIP had a very poor day in the fielding. The visiting fielders dropped some good chances and those misses proved very costly. Specially, Manish Pandey got some chances which helped him massively as he scored an important 54 runs in this game and provided a good fighting total for his team.
KXIP needs to look at this issue seriously and also needs to resolve this quickly as they have now to play more important games in this season.
Batting collapse
In this kind of tough pitch, even 133-run is not an easy chase in T20 cricket and that’s why a good start is very crucial for this kind of matches. KXIP got a very good start as their in-form openers KL Rahul and Chris Gayle put a brilliant 55-run partnership for the opening wicket.
But once that partnership was broken, new batsmen failed to carry that momentum. Apart from the opening duo, none of other KXIP batsmen reached the 20-run mark while only two partnerships from the second to last wicket reached the double-digit mark with the highest 20-run partnership (for the third wicket).
Once again brilliant bowling and excellent fielding from SRH players
Once again SRH bowlers impressed with their bowling and fielding. While SRH leg-spinner Rashid Khan once again led the bowling side brilliantly, other bowlers were equally looked very well. Apart from Mohammad Nabi’s 2-over spell, other all SRH bowlers had less than 6.50 economy rate.
The main difference between the teams was fielding. SRH players were the lot more active on the field as they were hardly letting any chance and that brought more pressure for the visiting batsmen which forced them to make mistakes.
