Shakib Al Hasan
Shubman Gill Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) smashed a scintillating half-century to lay the foundations after beating bottom-placed Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) by six wickets on Sunday.
Partially chasing 116, Gill scored 57 off 51 balls before Nitish Rana (25) Dinesh Karthik (18 not out) put the two-time champion on the line in Dubai.
Gill, who scored his maiden half-century in the current edition, said his plan was to hit the smaller portion of the boundary. He decided to make the most of Umran Malik’s pace on a surface that was acting slow.
“It was important to measure the wicket. It was not easy to hit the spinners on this wicket. I was targeting the smaller side, and the leg side was shorter at one end than the off side. While I didn’t have many runs under my belt, You don’t want the opposition to gain the upper hand,” Gill, who was named player of the match, said in a post-match presentation.
“When you play on slow wickets, playing with the wrist is more important and it comes naturally to me. I took the extra pace today (Umran’s) and it paid off in this game, but in any other game.” This cannot happen,” he added.
Eoin Morgan He praised Gill’s innings and his players for “putting their heads up”. The Kolkata bowlers also fired in unison to restrict Hyderabad to a modest score. Tim Southee (2/26), Shivam Mavi (2/29) and Varun Chakravarthy (2/26) shared six wickets between them.
“The wicket played slower than the wicket two nights ago. It swings early in the powerplay in these conditions, but it was sluggish. We needed good bowling and fielding and we did. Shubman played very well and chased Squad depth is a huge luxury to be able to summon Shakib, so he has had a huge impact,” Morgan said.
“We are focused on playing good cricket and we have done that in the last three weeks. The game plan in the dressing room has had a good impact and people are raising their hands. We did well to adapt to the slow conditions. And I’m happy with it,” he said.
With the win against Hyderabad, Kolkata are at the fourth position in the table with 12 points from 13 matches.
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