IPL
IPL 2023: Nitish Rana's gambles earn KKR 5-run victory over SRH
Hyderabad/IBNS: A couple of gambles by skipper Nitish Rana earned two points for his Kolkata Knight Riders in their must-win match against Sunrisers Hyderabad in the 47th match of Indian Premier League (IPL) 2023 at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium here on Thursday.
At one point when Hyderabad were looking all set to chase down 172 easily, Rana introduced his premier fast bowler Shardul Thakur in the 15th over in favour of the visitors.
Thakur scalped the key wicket of Heinrich Klaasen (36 off 20 balls) who was looking ominous for KKR.
Hyderabad skipper Aiden Markram, who too could have upset Kolkata's plans, was sent back to the dugout by Vaibhav Arora for 41 off 40 balls in the 17th over.
Despite Shardul's spare of one more over from the quota, Rana handed over the ball to Varun Chakaravarthy in the 20th over.
Needing six runs from the last ball, Varun successfully thwarted on-strike Bhubaneshwar Kumar's any attempt to hit a sixer restricting Hyderabad to 166/8 in 20 overs.
Opting to bat first after winning the toss in the evening, Kolkata started off poorly losing three wickets within the powerplay. They ended up scoring 171/9 in 20 overs.
Rinku Singh (46 off 35 balls) and skipper Nitish Rana (42 off 31 balls) were the top scorers for Kolkata.
Andre Russell contributed 24 off 15 balls while Anukul Roy scored unbeaten 13 off 7 balls towards the end.
Marco Jansen picked 2/24 in four overs for Hyderabad. Two wickets were scalped by T Natarajan for the hosts.
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