Rain pain for Kolkata Knight Riders

Bengaluru: It was a crunch game for Sunrisers Hyderabad and the Kolkata Knight Riders but the crowd only slowly trickled in. In tune with them, the defending champions, sent in to bat by Gautam Gambhir, struggled on a pitch that was slow and didn’t have too much runs in it.

That the Sunrisers managed just 30 in the Power Play told volumes of the slowness of the track. If the first 10 overs saw 61 come off it, the second was only marginally better (67 off it) as the Knight Riders kept the champs on a tight leash, restricting them to 128/7.

In a portent of things to come, the skies opened up in the final over of the SRH innings, Trent Boult picking up his only wicket of the match in rain.

Given the intensity of the thundershowers, there is a big question on the resumption. But as things stand, reduction of overs will only start post 11.30 pm after which it could become a shoot out of the shortest form.

However, if the match gets washed out without the Knight Riders getting a chance to bat, even in the Super Over, then Sunrisers, by virtue of finishing third in the league ahead of their opponents, will enter Qualifier 2 where they will meet Mumbai Indians at the same venue, here on Friday.

The eventual tally, however, small it may seem, was owed in plenty to their skipper David Warner, who once again kept them going in a quick 35-ball 37. The 50-run partnership between Warner and Kane Williamson, back in the eleven, for the second wicket was to prove the only highlight of the Sunrisers’ innings as all the five bowlers that Gambhir used — excluding Yusuf Pathan, who bowled just one — were to prove miserly in the evening.

With Shikhar Dhawan falling in the fifth over, SRH had their best moments through the Warner-Williamson combine. Though the hits weren’t plenty, the half-century partnership off 45 deliveries kept them in good stead before disaster struck as the duo fell in the space of three deliveries.

Williamson hit Coulter-Nile straight to Suryakumar Yadav at cover and before they could recover, they lost their Talisman, Warner, who rocked on his back foot only to find Piyush Chawla’s delivery go slow on him and crash into the middle.

From thereon, it was a story of heave, miss and fall as Yuvraj Singh fell going for a big one though Vijay Shankar (22, 17b) tried his best to up the ante.

Both the teams made sweeping changes — four each from their previous game. Williamson and Yuvraj Singh returned even as SRH made a huge gamble bringing in Chris Jordan for his first match of the season for this knockout game as well as going in with Bipul Sharma.

The Knight Riders, for their part missed the consistent Manish Pandey owing to injury and went in with Suryakumar Yadav, Ishank Jaggi, Nathan Coulter-Nile and Piyush Chawla.