A late fightback from Eoin Morgan and Naman Ojha helped Sunrisers Hyderabad post a fighting total of 142/7 against Kolkata Knight Riders at Hyderabad on Saturday. After batting first, the home side was struggling at 50/4 at the half-way mark, before Morgan and Ojha produced a 67-run partnership.
Brief Scores: SRH 142/7 in 20/20 overs (Morgan 51(43), Ojha 37(28), Umesh Yadav 3/28)
In the first doubleheader of the season, Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) took on Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) at Hyderabad in search of their first win of the season after suffering a 45-run defeat to Royal Challengers Bangalore in the opening encounter. SRH brought in Barinder Sran in place of the injured Ashish Nehra, after the left-arm pacer picked up a groin injury in the last match.
Kolkata Knight Riders, on the other hand, made four changes to the XI that suffered a defeat against Mumbai Indians on Wednesday, with Morne Morkel, Sunil Narine, Shakib Al-Hasan and Umesh Yadav coming in for John Hastings, Brad Hogg, Kuldeep Yadav and Colin Munro.
The home side won the toss and opted to make use of the fresh wicket at the Rajiv Gandhi stadium. Morne Morkel made an instant impact or at least everyone thought he did. SRH skipper David Warner went for an ambitious pull off the front foot against the SouthAfrican, and skied to give Piyush Chawla a grab at it at square leg. The leg-spinner caught it somehow to start the celebrations, but the replays on the big screen showed Morkel overstepping and the home crowd were once again back on their feet to see Warner live to fight another day.
Although Warner survived a scare, there was no second life for his partner at the other end. Shikhar Dhawan jumped out of the crease against Morkel and lashed at it, only to edge it to Uthappa behind the stumps in the third over. The bad start became a horrible one, four balls later, as the skipper also walked back to the pavilion, this time, falling to Umesh Yadav’s cutter to give Suryakumar Yadav the catch at cover.
The procession to the pavilion continued as Moisés Henriques also followed his predecessors after Yadav trapped the right-hander in front of the stumps. The run rate crawled near the five-run mark as Gambhir introduced Narine and Chawla to add further misery to the SRH batting. Deepak Hooda’s resistance also ended in the tenth over, after he shoved one in the air straight to long-on.
With wickets falling thick and fast at the other end, Eoin Morgan took it upon himself to take the team out of trouble. The Englishman, who wentthrough a horrible run in the World T20, smashed Narine for two consecutive boundaries in the 13th over, before joining hands with Naman Ojha to dish out a similar treatment to Chawla in the next over. The counter-attack from the duo gave the home side the much-needed momentum in the last five, as SRH looked in a dominant position for the first time in the match. A total of 48 runs came in the last five overs as Morgan and Ojha took the team to a fighting total of 142/7 on the back of a 67-run partnership.
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