Kolkata Knight Riders have made a winning start to the Indian Premier League 2024. The team from Kolkata beat Sunrisers Hyderabad by 4 runs in the third match of the season. Chasing the target of 209 runs, Hyderabad could score only 204 runs for 7 wickets in 20 overs. For Kolkata, Andre Russell played an explosive innings of 64 not out at the Eden Gardens Stadium, while Phil Salt scored 54. Ramandeep Singh scored 35 and Rinku Singh scored 23 runs. T Natarajan took three wickets. Heinrich Klaasen played a great innings in chasing runs but could not bring the team victory.
Russell On Fire
Neither team could cross the score of 200 even once in the first and second matches of this season. Both the teams crossed this mark in this match at the Eden on Saturday and gave the crowd plenty of entertainment. In this match, the two teams hit a total of 29 sixes (14 KKR, 15 SRH) of which Andre Russell hit 7 and 8 by Sunrisers batsman Henrik Klaassen. In the end, despite hitting one-six less, Kolkata Knight Riders won the match by 4 runs and started the campaign with a win.
Kolkata set Hyderabad a target of 209 which Hyderabad stormed to achieve. For that, Mayank Agarwal and Abhishek Sharma completed 60 runs in the powerplay. But after these two got out, the run rate slowed and wickets started to fall. Sunil Narine, Varun Chakraborty, and Suyash Sharma controlled the Hyderabad batsmen. The score was just 145 runs when the wicket of Abdul Samad fell on the fifth ball of the 17th over.
Klaasen Show The Classs !!
From here Hyderabad needed 60 runs in the last 3 overs and it was here that Heinrich Klaasen changed the course of the match. In the 18th over, Klaassen hit two sixes against Varun Chakraborty, with Shahbaz Ahmed also hitting a six. Still, 39 were needed in 2 overs and Mitchell Starc was in front for whom KKR spent Rs 24.5 crore. Klaassen hit Starc for 3 brilliant sixes in that over. Shahbaz hits a six again. But in the end, Hyderabad had to give up in front of Harshit’s bowling.
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