Sunrisers Hyderabad have an edge over Kolkata Knight Riders, claims Gautam Gambhir
Former Kolkata Knight Riders skipper Gautam Gambhir, who won two titles with them, has stated that Sunrisers Hyderabad have the edge over KKR at Eden, owing to their bowling arsenal. He also heaped praise on his successor, Dinesh Karthik, following his brilliant captaincy in the last game.
Kolkata Knight Riders' bowlers did exceedingly well to restrict Rajasthan Royals to just 144 runs in the second innings when they were chasing a paltry target of 170. The win would come as a huge confidence booster for the side as they came out victorious from a stage when the Royals needed just 74 runs off 48 balls.
However, ahead of their next match, IPL 2018’s second eliminator, they are not picked as the favorites by their former skipper who believes that Sunrisers Hyderabad would pack a stronger punch with the likes of Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Siddarth Kaul, Sandeep Sharma, and Rashid Khan as their weapons.
“For me, Siddharth Kaul’s contribution as a bowler has stood out. He has 19 wickets at an economy of 8 per over, which is incredible. Besides, there is not even a hint of ego in him as he plays support to Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Rashid Khan. I see a slight edge for Hyderabad in Friday’s game purely on their bowling prowess although they will be playing on a relatively smaller ground in Kolkata which can be difficult to defend,” wrote Gambhir in his HT column.
KKR and SRH share one win each this season in IPL. While SRH came to Eden to restrict KKR to a measly 138 runs in the first match to win it by five wickets, KKR exacted the revenge in Hyderabad two weeks back as they comfortably chased the target of 173 losing five wickets.
Karthik’ slow over rate was met with a backlash by Royals’ coach Shane Warne, who referred to it as “annoying” on his twitter feed. Gambhir, however, has defended the KKR captain stating it as good captaincy.
“For Wednesday’s win, my Man of the Match was DK. At times, captaincy gets ignored as it doesn’t get reflected on the scoreboard. While Rajasthan’s flirtations with batting order must have helped KKR but DK was on top of his game. His field settings to Sanju Samson and Ajinkya Rahane were superlative. That passage gave KKR the game,” Gambhir stated.
Both KKR and SRH have done extremely well to stand in the face of uncertainty. While SRH had to change their skipper in the last hour when David Warner was banned following the sandpaper gate, KKR always looked like an experiment this season with a new skipper at the helm and many set players leaving at the mega-auction. However, Gambhir has admitted that he was quite impressed for the way Dinesh Karthik has owned the KKR crowd within no time.
“One of the first tricks to win at Eden Gardens is to get the crowd on your side.” This was a pearl passed on to me by a stalwart when I took over Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR). I was nervous as I was stepping into the ‘Dada’ shoes of Sourav Ganguly. The tip helped. I am not one of those theatrical types who can play to the crowd. Hence I relied on performance, transparency and a bit of bhadralok (gentleman) approach. I can say with some confidence that when I left KKR, Eden was almost 90 percent purple.
“Dinesh Karthik has smartly picked up the thread. He, too, has done well in nurturing the Eden crowd. True to his personality, DK has not been your flashy, in-your-face modern day cricketer. Instead, he has smiled consistently, kept it simple, hasn’t chopped and changed too much,” added Gambhir.
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