Sunrisers Hyderabad’s chances of qualifying for the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2022 playoffs came to a disappointing end after they succumbed to a 54-run defeat against Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) on Saturday in Pune. In Pursuit of a 178-run target, Kane Williamson & Co were restricted to 128/3 in their quota of 20 overs.
SRH were never in the hunt as they stuttered in their way against a collective bowling effort from Shreyas Iyer’s men with the flamboyant Andre finishing with best figures of 3 for 22.
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It was an ordeal for Williamson till Russell bowled one on the stumps to end his misery. Rahul Tripathi (9 off 21 balls) also looked scratchy even as Abhishek Sharma (43 off 28 balls) attacked Sunil Narine, hitting him for two sixes. Once he was dismissed by Varun Chakravarthy and Narine took a fine return catch to dismiss SRH’s big hope Nicholas Pooran (2), there wasn’t much resistance from the rest of the batters.
Speaking at the post-match presser, Williamson admitted that SRH failed to put on a strong partnership to finish the big chase of 178. He also stated that he’s learning a big lesson taught by the loss against KKR.
“I mean largely the first half was good. Dre Russ is always a threat. Showed his class. We tried to create partnerships but KKR were really good. We have been struggling with creating momentum in the last few games. Sundar stepped up in the last over. Using our resources, a little early didn’t work for us today,” Williamson said during the post-match presentation.
“We wanted to get off to a good start. We wanted to get some momentum. There were glimpses and signs but wasn’t to be. The run rate got up and we were not able to pull it back. The game teaches us lessons and I am learning them right now,” he added.
KKR now have 12 points from 13 games with a net run-rate of +0.160 and moved to sixth place.
With Rajasthan Royals (14 from 12) and RCB (14 from 13 games) having the chance to move up, even a victory is unlikely to be enough for Shah Rukh Khan owned franchise which played its 13th ‘first XI’ combination in as many games .
(With Agency Inputs)
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