In what were some serious moments of ‘rush and panic’, the Knight Riders from Kolkata overcame them to enter the Qualifier 2 of the 10th season of the Indian Premier League. After the continuous interruption by the rain, Knight Riders were set a target of 48 runs to win from six overs.
A new opening combination in Robin Uthappa and Chris Lynn was sent to seal the victory for Knight Riders. But less did the management knew that panic would take over the team in the first seven balls of the second innings. After the loss of Lynn on the third delivery, in a bid to take full use of the powerplay, KKR sent Yusuf Pathan to win.
Pathan was only a guest of one ball as he was run-out by Bhuvneshwar Kumar. The first ball of the following over saw Uthappa pulling a Chris Jordan delivery straight to Shikhar Dhawan at deep square leg and this was where one felt that a turnaround was a possibility.
It required a sound amount of calmness in the middle as far as that batting team was concerned. And who better than Gautam Gambhir would have provided it? The 35-year old southpaw did not just steadied the ship but scored the crucial runs at a brisk pace as well.
It was only a matter of one good over for the match to shift momentum to Knight Riders’ side. To defend 48 in 36 balls with 10 wickets in hand and two overs of powerplay makes it a tedious job for the fielding captain.
Earlier Kolkata had won the toss and elected to field. They restricted Hyderabad to 128-7 in 20 overs. Captain David Warner top-scored with his 35-ball 37. Nathan Coulter-Nile led KKR’s attack with figures of 4-0-20-3. He was declared Man of the Match for the same. He was followed by Umesh Yadav, who picked a couple of wickets as well.
Watch Nathan Coulter-Nile’s bowling performance:
— CricShots (@cric_shots) May 18, 2017
Video Credits – IPL.
Feature Image Source – iplt20.com (screen grab)
