On Saturday night, the hosts Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) suffered their third consecutive defeat after losing by 5 wickets (with 2 balls to spare) against Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) at Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium (Uppal, Hyderabad).

SRH skipper Kane Williamson chose to bat first after winning the toss. Despite the powerful performances from the top-order batsmen, SRH was restricted to 172/9 at the end of 20 overs due to the middle-order batting collapse.

In reply, KKR had a strong start which led them to a victory and secured their spot for the playoffs in IPL 2018. KKR chased down that target in 19.4 overs after losing 5 wickets.

Now, we will briefly talk about some important reasons for SRH’s defeat in this game.

Also read: Match 54 (SRH vs KKR) – Hits and Flops

Weak death-over batting

SRH top-order batsmen provided the great start as they were at 141/2 at the end of 15 overs. When it was looking like that SRH was targeting for 200+ total, they faced a massive batting collapse as they were restricted to 172/9 at the end of 20 overs. They only managed to score 31 runs in the last 5 overs and lost seven wickets including 4 wickets in the final over.

Also read: (SRH vs KKR) – Turning Point of the Match

At the end of the match, SRH was around 20-25 runs short and their weak death-over batting was fully responsible for that.