Nitish Rana, Rahul Tripathi star in KKR win

Chennai, April 11

Lesser-known players Nitish Rana and Rahul Tripathi outshone teammates like Shubman Gill, Andre Russell and Eoin Morgan as they powered Kolkata Knight Riders to a 10-run win over Sunrisers Hyderabad in the third match of IPL-14 here tonight. Rana and Tripathi struck half-centuries as KKR piled up 187/6 after being asked to bat first.

Rana top-scored with a 56-ball 80 while Tripathi made 53 off just 29 balls, hitting five fours and two sixers. Dinesh Karthik chipped in with 22 not out off nine balls, while Gill (15 off 13), Russell (5 off 5) and Morgan (2 off 3) were the notable failures for KKR.

SRH made a fine late comeback with Rashid Khan leading the way with figures of 2/24. Mohammad Nabi also took two wickets, giving away 32 runs.

Bad start

SRH’s chase got off to a bad start, losing openers David Warner (3) and Wriddhiman Saha (7) with only 10 runs on the board.

However, that brought together Manish Pandey and Jonny Bairstow, and they bludgeoned 92 runs in their partnership, off only 10.5 overs, and SRH seemed to be in with a good chance to score a victory. Bairstow made 55 off 40 balls, with five fours and three sixers, but his wicket, off Pat Cummins, led to the fading of his team’s hopes. When he fell, his team needed 76 off seven overs, but they ran out of steam and ended up with 177/5. Pandey remained unbeaten on 61 off 44 balls. — TNS, agencies

Brief scores: Kolkata Knight Riders: 187/6 in 20 overs (Nitish Rana 80, Rahul Tripathi 53; Rashid Khan 2/24, Mohammad Nabi 2/32); Sunrisers Hyderabad: 177/5 in 20 overs (Manish Pandey 61*, Johnny Bairstow 55; Prasidh Krishna 2/35). 

Needed another 15-20 runs, says Raina

Mumbai: Suresh Raina is back with a bang in IPL but rued the fact that CSK failed to score an additional 20 runs against Delhi Capitals in their opening game which led to a seven wicket defeat. CSK put on board a competitive 188 with Raina scoring a brisk 54 but last-year’s finalists Delhi Capitals overhauled the target without any fuss. “A bit disappointed to lose the game, it could have been better, but like I said it is always to come back and do the Whistle Podu,” Raina said in a video posted by CSK. “It could have been better if we would have scored 15-20 runs more but I think we bowled better in the middle overs,” he added. TNS, Agencies

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