Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) registered a 5-run win against Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) in match number 47 of the Indian Premier League (IPL) at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium in Hyderabad on Wednesday (May 4). 

While KKR posted 171/9 in their 20 overs after opting to bat first riding on healthy contributions from Rinku Singh (46 off 35) and captain Nitish Rana (42 off 31), in their run-chase despite an early stumble were pretty much alive in the run-chase.

Aiden Markram (41 off 40) and Heinrich Klaasen (36 off 20) were the top run-getters in the SRH innings but wickets at crucial moments in the game allowed the match to go way deeper for their liking with the equation reading 9 needed to win for 6 balls for the chasing side which Varun Chakaravarthy defended successfully.

Chakravarthy was one of the stars of the match for the winning team in an innings where the opposition required 8.6 runs an over from the outset but he ended up conceding just 20 runs in his 4 overs while also picking up a wicket. Shardul Thakur (2/23) and Vaibhav Arora (2/32) were the other bowlers who impressed with Harshit Rana, Andre Russell and Anukul Roy also picking up a wicket each.

For Hyderabad too their bowlers had done a reasonably good job with T Nataraj and Marco Jansen finishing as the pick of the bowlers returning with overs of 2 for 30 and 2 for 24 respectively but as it turned out it wasn’t enough as their batters once again failed to get past that total.

As a result of Kolkata’s win they now have 10 points from 8 matches and are alive in the race to the Playoffs. SRH, meanwhile, remain at 8 points but they have played 9 matches. Both KKR and SRH continue to remain at the 8th and the 9th position in the ten-team table respectively.

While the Nitish Rana-led side will face PBKS in their next encounter on May 8, SRH will lock horns against RR on May 7.