The second match of the IPL 2019 saw Kolkata Knight Riders locking horns with Sunrisers Hyderabad at the Eden Gardens on Sunday (March 24).

KKR skipper Dinesh Karthik won the toss and opted to bowl first. The decision seemed to backfire on the home team initially as comeback man David Warner got off to a flying start, dispatching fours and sixes to all parts of the ground. The southpaw along with Jonny Bairstow (39) added 118 runs for the opening wicket in 12.5 overs.

KKR's spinners were expensive, and the tidier overs were bowled by their faster bowlers Lockie Ferguson and Prasidh Krishna. Warner's dismissal on 85 slowed down the scoring rate a little. Vijay Shankar (40), who is on a personal quest to earn a World Cup spot, came up with some fireworks at the end of the innings to take SRH score to 181/3 in 20 overs.

In reply, KKR got off to a terrible start as they Chris Lynn for just 7. Nitish Rana and Robin Uthappa added 80 runs for the second wicket to bring the innings back on track. However, they lost the plot after the dismissal of Uthappa (35). While Sandeep Sharma removed captain Karthik for 2, Rashid Khan got rid of the well set Rana for 68 to reduce KKR to 118/4.

When things were looking down and out for the hosts, Andre Russell (49* off 19 balls) turned the table with his brutal strokeplay. The Windies all-rounder smashed Siddarth Kaul for 19 runs in the 18th over, while he thrashed 21 runs in the penultimate over off SRH’s stand-in skipper Bhuvneshwar Kumar to take KKR to 169/4. Needing 13 runs to win in the final over, Shubman Gill (18* off 10 balls) came to the party as he smoked Shakib Al Hasan for two sixes to help KKR reach the target with six wickets and two balls to spare.

Twitter experts were awestruck to see the way Russell and Gill brought the victory for KKR from the jaws of defeat.

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