Nitish Rana played a blistering knock of 80 in just 56 balls to secure a comfortable win for Kolkata Knight Riders in their opening IPL encounter against Sunrisers Hyderabad. Rana smashed four sixes and nine boundaries even he was unlucky to not hit a century.
Batting first, Kolkata Knight Riders amassed a total of 187-6 in their quota of 20 overs. Aside from Rana, Rahul Tripathi also rose to the occasion to showcase his batting prowess as he scored 29-ball 53 runs.
Mohammad Nabi and Rashid Khan claimed two wickets each for the SRH, while Bhuvaneshwar Kumar and T Natarajan shared one wicket each.
When the SRH began their run-chase they received two big setbacks by losing David Warner and Wriddhiman Saha when the team’s total was just 10. Manish Pandey and Jonny Bairstow played impressive knocks to provide stability to the SRH’s innings as the duo added 92 runs for the third wicket. However, Bairstow was out for 55 which he faced 40 balls to score.
Manish Pandey remained unbeaten at 61, which he faced 44 balls to score. Vijay Shankar and Abdul Samad made valiant last-minute efforts but the SRH still fell short of 10 runs, giving an easy victory to the team owned by Shah Rukh Khan. Shankar was out for 11, while Samad made 19 runs in just 8 balls.