We were witness to the all important qualifier match yesterday, as the Indian Premier League’s tenth edition speeds towards a conclusion. Defending champions Sunrisers Hyderabad at the third position on the points table took on Kolkata Knight Riders at the Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru. It was a rain curtailed match that carried over into the wee hours and was decided based on a revised target set by the Duckworth Lewis System.
Winning the toss, KKR elected to field first. Put in to bat first, the title defenders SRH had a unspectacular but steady start. Openers David Warner* made 37 off 37 and Shikhar Dhawan made 11 off 19.
Kane Williamson (24 off 35), Vijay Shankar (22 off 28) and Naman Ojha (16 off 24) were the others who contributed to the team total of 128. Nathan Coulter-Nile’s 3/20 and Umesh Yadav (2/21) were the pick of the KKR bowlers.
The rain followed the first innings and the teams had to sit it out in their respective dugouts for hours. KKR would have cursed the rain because a rained out match would have meant that they were eliminated (since they were one place below SRH on the points table with 16 points as against SRH’s 17).
The rules stipulated that an eliminator match could start as late as 12.27 AM. So KKR started their innings 3 hours and 18 minutes after the rain started to come down. They were set a target of 48 to chase down in 6 overs.
KKR changed their batting order, then seemed to panic as wickets tumbled quickly. Robin Uthappa was caught after scoring just 1 run off 2 balls, Chris Lynn made just 6 off 4, Yusuf Pathan was out for a duck. It fell to skipper Gautam Gambhir to take charge. His masterful 32 off 25 ensured that KKR managed to reach their target with 4 balls to spare.
After the 1.27am finish, we had the post match presentation: The perfect Catch of the Match award went to Nathan Coulter-Nile. The award for the Maximum Sixes went to David Warner for his two sixes. The Stylish Player of the Day award went to Gautam Gambhir. The Player of the Match was Nathan Coulter-Nile for his decisive three wicket haul and excellent work in the field.
KKR have not made it to the finals yet. They faceoff against Mumbai Indians, to decide who makes it to the finals on Sunday. Both teams having won the title twice in the past, this should be a very interesting contest.
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