Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) opened their IPL 2024 campaign with a nervy 4-run victory over Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) at the Eden Gardens, Kolkata on Saturday (March 23).
Asked to bat first, KKR piled up a massive 208/7 in 20 overs on the back of Andre Russell (64* off 25 balls) and Philip Salt (54 off 40 balls).
T Natarajan was the pick of the bowlers for SRH, returning with three wickets by conceding 32 runs in his four overs.
In reply, SRH got off to a quickfire start as the duo of Mayank Agarwal and Abhishek Sharma added 60 runs for the opening wicket in double quick time. However, both of them got out in quick succession for 32-run each.
SRH then lost Aiden Markram (18), Rahul Tripathi (20) and Abdul Samad (15) cheaply to found themselves struggling at 145/5.
Amid the pressure situation, Heinrich Klaasen produced a scintillating 25-ball half-century to keep SRH in the hunt. In fact, Klaasen and Shahbaz Ahmed smashed Mitchell Starc for 26 runs in the penultimate over to make the equation – 13 runs off 6 balls.
In the final over, Klaasen slammed Harshit Rana’s first delivery for a six but the KKR pacer bounced back from the second delivery onwards to take the home team over the line.
Rana’s second delivery went for a single while he dismissed Shahbaz in the following ball. The fourth ball again went for a single and then he got the prized scalp of Klaasen (63 off 29 balls) in the penultimate delivery.
SRH needed 5 off the final ball and Harshit Rana bowled a slower delivery to deceive Pat Cummins, restricting the visitors to 204/7.
Cricket experts on X (formerly Twitter) were in awe of Heinrich Klaasen's whirlwind knock while they also praised Harshit Rana’s performance in the final over.
Here are the reactions:
