IPL 2020, Match 8 – Kolkata Knight Riders v Sunrisers Hyderabad – Shubman Gill steers KKR to victory with unbeaten 70-run knock

A diligent, mature, unbeaten knock of 70 from Shubman Gill against the Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH), supported adequately by Nitish Rana early on and then Eoin Morgan, helped the Kolkata Knight Riders in securing their first victory in the 2020 IPL. The sequence of teams bowling first after winning the toss came to a pause today […]
 
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IPL 2020, Match 8 – Kolkata Knight Riders v Sunrisers Hyderabad – Shubman Gill steers KKR to victory with unbeaten 70-run knock

A diligent, mature, unbeaten knock of 70 from Shubman Gill against the Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH), supported adequately by Nitish Rana early on and then Eoin Morgan, helped the Kolkata Knight Riders in securing their first victory in the 2020 IPL.

The sequence of teams bowling first after winning the toss came to a pause today after David Warner called the outcome of the coin flip correctly and opted to bat. While Narine, opening the bowling for KKR, kept things tight from his end, Cummins, having bowled at a tight line and length at good pace with the new ball, broke through in his second over, knocking Jonny Bairstow’s off-stump back. Manish Pandey walked in and started off well, viciously pulling Shivam Mavi over the cow corner boundary facing his third delivery.

ALSO READ: IPL 2020: KKR vs SRH Game Plan 2 – Spin in powerplay could hold the key against a top-heavy SRH

The introduction of wrist-spinners Kuldeep Yadav and KKR debutant Varun Chakravarthy stemmed the flow of runs. Although Kuldeep went for 10 in his second over, Chakravarthy broke through first ball after the first time-out, catching Warner off his own bowling with a top-spinner. The KKR bowlers, Chakravarthy in particular, had the SRH middle-order batsmen on tenterhooks after that, with the duo of Manish Pandey and Wriddhiman Saha being unable to score freely.

Even though Pandey did get to a half-century, he failed to bat till the end, dismissed by Andre Russell in the 18th over. Saha, who just did not seem to be good enough at this level anymore, ended up batting till the last over, eventually running himself out for 30 at just over a run-a-ball. SRH ended with 142, a score that seemed to be 20-25 runs short.

IPL 2020, Match 8 – Kolkata Knight Riders v Sunrisers Hyderabad – Shubman Gill steers KKR to victory with unbeaten 70-run knock

Despite having got to a half-century, Manish Pandey failed to bat till the end

Shubman Gill got KKR off to a flying start with a dazzling array of Cricketing shots. After the loss of Sunil Narine, the pair of Gill and Nitish Rana capitalized on the fielding restrictions and some very ordinary bowling to get KKR to 38 off the first 4 overs. The wicket of Rana, and then Karthik a couple of overs later, did not seem to deter Gill, who, after smashing a further couple of boundaries off Khaleel Ahmed in the final over of the powerplay, joined forces with England limited-overs captain Eoin Morgan in building what eventually turned out to be a match-winning partnership.

IPL 2020, Match 8 – Kolkata Knight Riders v Sunrisers Hyderabad – Shubman Gill steers KKR to victory with unbeaten 70-run knock

The duo rotated the strike with ease against Rashid Khan and Mohammad Nabi, finding the fence occasionally and playing them out comfortably in the process. Upon the return of the pacers, Gill and Morgan went on the offense and ended the chase with a flourish.

ALSO READ: IPL 2020: KKR vs SRH Game Plan 1 – Hold back Rashid Khan for KKR’s key batsmen

Shortcomings of SRH in today’s game

Abysmal middle-order performance

SRH’s middle-order has been under scrutiny for a while now, with experts frequently pointing out the quality of their batting line-up after openers Warner and Bairstow. Although credit must be given to the KKR spinners, especially Varun Chakravarthy on his KKR debut, who returned figures of 1/25 off his 4 overs, the meek efforts from the middle-order duo of Manish Pandey and Wriddhiman Saha were simply not good enough, not against a team that has the firepower to chase down mammoth targets on their day. Although Pandey did accelerate a fair bit towards the end, bringing up a half-century in the process, his tame, untimely dismissal to Andre Russell with two overs left did not help SRH at all.

Saha, who called out the KKR management in an interview with a Bengali news outlet after the 2018 IPL auction for not paying too much heed to players from Bengal or to the Cricket being played in or by Bengal, has not been able to make much of a statement with bat in hand in the limited opportunities he was bestowed with in the last couple of IPL editions, with his nadir coming today against the very team he was critical of two years ago. Promoted to number 4 to stabilize the innings and accelerate at the end after Warner’s departure, Saha, playing in place of Vijay Shankar who had a sprain in his back, looked visibly inadequate against the spin of Sunil Narine and Varun Chakravarthy, thereby increasing the pressure on his partner, Pandey, in finding the boundaries.

The Indian Test wicketkeeper further unjustified his selection in the SRH side by miserably failing to get bat on ball towards the death overs against Andre Russell and Kamlesh Nagarkoti, eventually running himself out for a 31-ball 30 in the last over.

Too many loose deliveries in the powerplay

Defending a target of 143 was never going to be easy for SRH, particularly against the reputed KKR batting line-up. Despite conceding a couple of boundaries, the SRH bowlers seemed to start off well with the ball, with Khaleel Ahmed taking the wicket of Narine off his second delivery.

It was the third over from where they began to lose grip over the game, with the opening bowling pair of Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Khaleel Ahmed offering width and straying on the pads far too often. As a result, Kumar and Khaleel went for 12 and 14 runs respectively in the 3rd and 4th overs, thereby giving the momentum away to their opposition. Even though Thangarasu Natarajan, introduced in the fifth over, broke the stand between Rana and Gill by nicking off the former, SRH ended up conceding 52 runs in the powerplay, 12 more than what they had scored in the 1st innings.

Lack of proactiveness in field placements in the overs of Rashid Khan and Mohammad Nabi

Having got off to a flier in the first six overs with a delightful display of strokeplay with a tinge of bravado to go with it, all Shubman Gill needed to do was to keep the scoreboard ticking against the Afghan spin-twins Rashid Khan and Mohammad Nabi by rotating the strike. The fact that he got to do so with so much ease, along with Eoin Morgan, who walked in after Karthik was trapped in front by Rashid Khan in his first over, showed the lack of urgency and proactiveness from the SRH camp.

Rashid and Nabi usually bowl at a flatter trajectory, quicker through the air. The two of them bowled with a long-on and long-off, which meant that the instances of Gill and Morgan punching the ball back down the ground and completing a single were frequent in nature today. Given that SRH had nothing to lose, their skipper David Warner could have taken the risk of bringing up either one, or both the fielders stationed at the fielding positions mentioned above inside the circle to cut down those easy singles and coax the batsmen into manufacturing something, which could have either resulted in a wicket or preponed the inevitable. Although the approach could have resulted in their Net Run Rate take a hit, it was a risk worth taking.