IPL 2017 | Unstoppable Warner ends KKR’s three-match winning streak

IPL 2017 | Unstoppable Warner ends KKR’s three-match winning streak

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BCCI

A 43-ball century by David Warner was enough to bring an end to Kolkata’s three-match winning run as Hyderabad emerged victorious and within a point of the former. In a rain-affected match, KKR eventually fell short by 48 runs against SRH’s target of 209 runs despite Robin Uthappa’s fighting fifty.

Brief Scores : Sunrisers Hyderabad 209/3 (David Warner 126, Kane Williamson 40; Chris Woakes 1/46) beat Kolkata Knight Riders 161/7 (Robin Uthappa 53, Manish Pandey 39; Mohammed Siraj 2/26, Bhuvneshwar Kumar 2/29) by 48 runs.

Having won all their games chasing, it was no surprise when Gautam Gambhir elected to bowl first after winning the toss. Being on a three-match winning run, KKR decided to keep the same team as the last game, but David Warner announced that Deepak Hooda and Ashish Nehra had been dropped to make way for Mohammed Siraj and Bipul Sharma.

Warner’s record-breaking blitz puts SRH in control

When David Warner scored just six runs off the first over, no one sitting inside the Rajiv Gandhi International Cricket Stadium would have had a clue of what they were about to witness. The next two overs from Umesh Yadav and Chris Woakes went for a combined 29 runs with Warner getting 21 off those. With the pacers being ineffective, Gambhir was forced to introduce spin into the attack to stem the run flow as he threw the ball to Yusuf Pathan. The result was Warner taking 17 runs off him, and following it up with 13 off Sunil Narine in the next over. The duo went on to break SRH’s record for the highest score in the power play overs by 15 runs, as the scoreboard reflected the score of 79/0. Even spreading out the field after the restrictions didn’t help KKR as Warner just kept scoring at will, reaching 98 off just 40 balls and taking his team to an astonishing score of 123/0 at the midway point of the innings.

Kane Williamson takes Hyderabad past 200

Even though the 11th over yielded just three runs, Warner celebrated his first IPL century since 2012 as if he had won the World Cup. Having picked up the wicket of Dhawan through a brilliant throw by Kuldeep, KKR gained a foothold in the game by bringing the run rate down to 10.26 by the 15th over. Knowing that he was tiring, Warner started attempting the big shots and with everything going his way, the Aussie took 15 runs off a Narine over to take the score to 169/1. In the next over though, curtains came down on the Warner show as he mistimed a slower ball by Chris Woakes straight into the hands of Gautam Gambhir. But Kane Williamson scored a majority of the 34 in the last three overs, in a 25-ball 40 innings, to set KKR a target of 210 to win.

Uthappa and Pandey stabilize KKR after early losses

Needing to chase at a rate of over 10, KKR got off to the worst possible start as the two time champions lost both their openers, Narine and Gambhir, within three overs. With just 16 runs on the board in three overs, Uthappa decided to have a go at Siraj, smashing the youngster for two boundaries in a row. Manish Pandey replicated his partner’s efforts by hitting Siddharth Kaul for two boundaries. KKR appeared to be on the path of recovery having reached a score of 52/2 after seven overs when rain interrupted play. Following the restart, KKR went on the offensive as Uthappa ensured his side took 14 runs off a Rashid Khan over. At the midway point, the visitor’s  reached a score of 82/2 and looked like they wanted to make a game out of it.

Exceptional death bowling chokes out any chance of KKR revival

Sensing that KKR were in the ascendancy, Warner brought his strike bowler, Bhuvneshwar, back into the attack and it was a move that paid off immediately as a slower ball proved to be the undoing of Pandey. With the required run rate crossing 13 runs an over, Uthappa decided to throw caution to the wind as he took 17 runs of an Henriques over. But in the very next one, Siraj accounted for his wicket and it was all downhill from there. Yusuf Pathan failed to impose himself on the game and eventually ended up throwing away his wicket on the last ball of Rashid Khan’s spell adding just 12 runs to the score. De Grandhomme’s 15-ball 18 only ensured that KKR brought an element of respectability to the defeat as the home side took the honours by 48 runs. Hyderabad are now just one point off Mumbai and Kolkata, who lead the table, with 13 points off their ten games.

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