Kolkata Knight Riders captain Shreyas Iyer was delighted with his team’s performance after defeating Sunrisers Hyderabad by a huge margin of 54 runs at the Maharashtra Cricket Association Stadium, Pune on Saturday. KKR posted a par total of 177 runs after Iyer won the toss and decided to bat first.
Ajinkya Rahane and Nitish Rana scored 28 and 26 runs respectively but KKR lost four wickets in the middle overs to find themselves at 94-5. However, the finishing kick was provided by their talismanic all-rounder Andre Russell and Sam Billings.
Russell smashed 49 runs from 28 balls as he was able to hit the ground running and scored three fours and four sixes. Furthermore, Sam Billings contributed with 34 runs off 29 balls and he added 63 runs with Russell to help his team get past the 170-run mark.
Moreover, Andre Russell scalped three wickets and conceded only 22 runs in his quota of four overs. Tim Southee snared two wickets whereas Umesh Yadav, Sunil Narine, and Varun Chakravarthy took one wicket apiece.
Thus, it was a collective effort from KKR as they ticked the right boxes to win a must-win game. Iyer feels it was an over-par score and also cleared his comments on the franchise’s CEO having a say in the team’s selection.
Shreyas Iyer said in the post-match presentation, “The mindset we came up in this game, it was simply outstanding. All the boys did the right things, they played fearless cricket. It was really important to win the toss. The teams batting first have won a lot of matches in Pune. Everything panned out really well. We were going over by over. The plan was to give Russell the strike as much as possible. We knew Washi had one over left, that was the over we were going to target. Sam was also giving that support. It worked out pretty well, hope it works out for us in the final game as well. It was an over-par total. Sunil and Varun stepped up on this slow wicket, they bowled smart and got crucial wickets. We never let them to get under our skins, kudos to that. We don’t have anything to lose right now. We haven’t played our A-game so far in the league, that’s what I spoke about today before the match started. Also, I want to clarify from the last interview. When I took the CEO’s name, I wanted to say that he’s there to console the players who’ve been sitting out. It’s tough for us as well when we select the team.”
KKR will need to win their last league stage match to stay in contention. Furthermore, they will need favors from other teams in order to qualify for the playoff stages. KKR will next face Lucknow Super Giants at the Dr. DY Patil Sports Academy, Mumbai on Wednesday.
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