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It’s all gold and purple in Chennai, as Kolkata Knight Riders led by Eion Morgan successfully defended the target of 188 against the batting heavy Sunrisers Hyderabad by 10 runs. This is KKR’s 13th win over their southern counterpart. The surety of captaincy right at the beginning of the season has inculcated in Morgan, very visible confidence as he rotated his bowlers skilfully throughout the innings.

The SRH innings started on the wrong foot, losing captain David Warner (3 off 4 balls) in the 2nd over of the innings. Wriddhiman Saha (7 off 6 balls) followed in the very next over, clean bowled by Shakib Al Hasan.

At 10/2 Manish Pandey was joined at the crease by Jonny Bairstow. The duo made batting look easy on the spin-friendly pitch, forming a 92 runs partnership, and looked set to steer SRH for a famous chase. Attempting a cut of Pat Cummings, Bairstow (55 off 40 balls) was caught at point by Nitesh Rana. But this was not enough to deter a determined Manish Pandey, who scored his 19th IPL fifty and kept SRH in the hunt. Scoring 61 not-out off 44 balls, Manish Pandey took the match to the last over, however, wickets kept tumbling on the other end. Joining Pandey for the 6th wicket Abdul Samad delivered two lusty sixes in the 19th over but 188 proved to be too big a total for SRH, against the formidable bowling line-up of KKR.

Prasidh Krishna was the pick of the bowlers for KKR taking 2 wickets for 35 runs in his 4 overs, supported by Al Hasan, Cummins, and Russell taking one wicket each.

SRH won the toss and choose to bowl in the sultry conditions of MA Chidambaram Stadium, Chennai to mitigate the dew factor under the lights. KKR went off to a flyer of a start courtesy – Nitish Rana (80 off 56 balls), who looked in sublime form. However, Rashid Khan – the afghan spin wizard cut short the opening partnership by cleaning up Shubman Gill for 15 runs of 13 balls in the 7th over of the innings.

Rahul Tripathi joined Rana in the middle scoring an aggressive 53 off 29 balls to take the score past 140 inside 15 overs. The knock at the strick-rate of 182, is Tripathi’s 6th Fifty of his IPL career. As KKR was set to take their score beyond 200, India’s latest seam-sensation T Natarajan out-foxed Tripathi to get him caught behind the stumps by Wriddhiman Saha.

SRH seamers looked for cover throughout the innings with virtually no assistance from the pitch. However, the Afghan spin duo of Rashid Khan and Mohammad Nabi put the breaks on the scoring by some brilliant display of spin bowling, causing a mid-innings collapse for KKR. Eoin Morgan, A. Russell, and Nitesh Rana losing their wickets in a span of 3 runs to the spin twins, who ended up with 4 wickets for 56 runs between them.

A last-minute flourish from the ever-dependable Dinesh Kartik (22 off 9 balls) ensured that KKR reaches the above par score of 187 for the loss of 6 wickets.

For his match-winning all-round performance of 80 off 56 balls and the crucial catch of Jonny Bairstow, Nitish Rana was awarded the Man of the Match trophy.

It’s back to the square board for SRH as they have to find out a way to bring in Kane Williamson to add some stability to the line-up before their next game on 14th April against Royal Challengers Bangalore at the same venue.