IPL 2019: Open Sesame

Hyderabad: Open Sesame. Those two words aptly describe Sunrisers Hyderabad’s magic tale against Kolkata Knight Riders on Sunday evening. Accomplished openers David Warner and Jonny Bairstow raised their fourth century partnership of the season to add to seven 50-run stands to break the door and barge into the top half of the IPL table.

KKR bowlers looked clueless as the top two crashed the ball about the Rajiv Gandhi International Cricket Stadium to make a mockery of the 160-run target which the hosts overhauled with five overs and nine wickets in hand! Talk about stealing a march.

Warner walloped 67 off 38 balls, three of which raced to the boundary and five sailed over it. Bairstow blasted an unbeaten 80 that came in 43 deliveries and contained seven fours and four sixes. Game over. Early.

The 131-run stand for the first wicket in just 12.2 overs also meant Warner was involved in 16 century partnerships with different partners for the Sunrisers. Phew!

Earlier, Kolkata got off to a cracking start with Chris Lynn and Sunil Narine slamming the ball around. Runs flowed freely as the two rattled 42 in the second half of the third over when the latter fell, bowled by left-arm seamer Khaleel Ahmed, whom he had powered over point for one of his two sixes earlier. Narine’s knock of 25 contained three boundaries and two maximums.

Khaleel struck again in his next over, this time claiming Shubman Gill. A little later, seamer Bhuvneshwar Kumar managed an edge off in-form Nitish Rana (11) for wicketkeeper Jonny Bairstow to complete the catch. Then, a desperate Dinesh Karthik flung himself full stretch on the ground but failed to beat Vijay Shankar’s throw from midwicket as he tried to steal a non-existent second run as KKR slipped to 73 for 4 in the ninth over from a strong 42 without loss in the third.

It took a pugnacious partnership of 54 for the fifth wicket between Lynn and Rinku Singh (who replaced Robin Uthappa for the game) to get the Kinghts back on track. However, the two fell in quick succession. Rinku (30) was caught by Rashid Khan at deep mid-wicket off Sandeep Sharma as he tried to force the pace in the 16th over and Lynn was lapped up brilliantly by a diving Kane Williamson at cover after covering quite a bit of ground in the next.

Then, mystery spinner Rashid Khan tightened the noose, bowling five dots to No.8 Piyush Chawla in the 18th over, beating him every ball much to the delight of a packed house. The Afghan returned with fabulous figures of 23 for 1 in his four overs.

Andre Russell was surprisingly cheered his way to the crease at the fall of the fifth wicket, in the 16th over. He added two more sixes to his tournament-leading tally of 39 before departing for a 9-ball 15. Left-arm spinner Shahbaz Nadeem made a good comeback. After going for 18 runs in his first over — second of the innings – he clawed back to concede just 12 in his last three overs.