In yet another nail biting final finish, the Knights found a way to wrestle an incredible win from the jaws of defeat courtesy an excellent last over from Varun Chakravarthy. Electing to bat first in a wicket that looked a touch slowish, the Knights braved the early loss of wickets to put on a competitive 171 on the board. In reply, the Sunrisers Hyderabad fell short by 5 runs finishing with 166/9 at the end of their 20 overs giving the Knights a crucial win on the road!
After the departures of Gurbaz, Roy and Venkatesh left the Knights at a precarious 35/3, Skipper Rana and Rinku Singh put on a vital stand of 61 runs to steady the ship. Rana, once again led from the front hitting 3 fours and sixes in his 42 (31) supported by Rinku Singh 46 (35) who continued his stellar form with the bat this season. Andre Russell’s 25(14) and Anukul Roy’s 13(7) added some much needed late impetus to the scoreboard.
In response, the Knights bowlers began the defence in admirable fashion restricting the Sunrisers to 54/4 in 6.2 overs with Shardul, Harshit and Russell all picking wickets in the powerplay to keep the Knights in the game. A 70 run stand between Sunrisers Captain Aiden Markram and Henrich Klaasen then threatened to take the game away from the Knights before Shardul returned to dismiss the latter for 36 with the score reading 124/5. With just 47 runs to defend from the last 35 balls, the Knights bowled admirably in the death overs with pacer Vaibhav Arora dismissing Markram and Jansen to put the Sunrisers under tremendous pressure. Varun Chakravarthy however was the Hero on the night, defending 9 runs in the last over. The wily spinner gave away just 8 runs in his final 3 overs in a spell for the ages as he helped the Knights claim a memorable win.
Speaking after the match, Skipper Rana credited the win to the bowlers Shardul, Vaibhav and Varun for bringing back the Knights in the game and ultimately winning it. Skipper Rana said he backed his bowlers to do the job in the final over and he won them the 2 points on the night. Varun Chakravarthy, who was rightfully awarded the Man of the Match Award, said that his plan was to challenge the batsmen to go over the bigger boundaries on the leg side and this helped him bag the wicket of Samad in the final over which proved decisive.
The Knights will now return home to take on the Punjab Kings in another must win game at the Eden Gardens on Monday.
