Harry Brook’s maiden IPL century and Marco Jansen’s fiery bowling spell sealed a 23-run victory for Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) in the IPL match against Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) at Eden Gardens on Friday. Chasing 229 for victory, KKR didn’t have a dream start to the massive challenge as they lost the Afghani wicket-keeping batter Rahmanullah Gurbaz for a duck 0(3). Bhuvneshar Kumar lured Gurbaz to clear the boundary but he ended up mistiming the shot and the ball went straight into the hands of Umran Malik. Venkatesh Iyer 10 (11) sought to replicate his performance against Gujarat Titans in the previous match but before he could do much, he became Marco Jansen’s first wicket.
KKR decided to gamble by sending Sunil Narine early into the innings but Jansen bowled smartly and trapped Narine for a golden duck.
N Jagadeesan and Nitish Rana tried to bring KKR back into the game. Rana specifically targeted Umran Malik as he smashed 28 runs ik a single over.
However, SRH bounced back into the game as Mayank Markande picked up the wicket of Jagadeesan 36(21).
Andre Russell came in with expectations on his shoulders. He has already produced match-winning performances for KKR in similar situations in the previous edition of the IPL. However, this time it was not his day with the bat as Markande made Russell 3(6) his second victim. Rinku Singh stepped on the pitch as KKR fans hoped he would break KKR’s record of chasing the highest target in their IPL history. Nitish Rana and Rinku Singh struggled but kept KKR in the game. Natrajan’s experience allowed SRH to regain control as he gave a major blow to the hosts by picking up the wicket of Nitish 75(41).
In the end it was too much for Rinku and Shardul Thakur to achieve in the final over of the game, as they needed to score 32 runs in 6 balls. Umran Malik finished off the game and restricted KKR to a score of 205-7. The only disappointment that SRH would have after the game would be the number of chances they dropped throughout the second innings.
Earlier, Harry Brook slammed the first century of IPL 2023 and Markram scored 50 off 26 while youngster Abhishek Sharma played a quickfire knock of 32 in 17 deliveries. For KKR, Andre Russell bagged three while Varun Chakaravarthy claimed one wicket. Put to bat first, SRH got off to a fiery start as their openers Mayank Agarwal and Harry Brook slammed Kolkata bowlers all around the ground and gathered 40 plus runs under 4 overs.
However, Andre Russell struck with his first ball of IPL 2023 and removed Agarwal for 9 in the 5th over of the game. New batter Rahul Tripathi did not last long on the crease as he was removed by Russell in the 5th over after scoring just 9 runs. Captain Aiden Markram then came out and handled the charge with Brook.