Rana, Tripathi, Prasidh star in KKR's opening win
KKR's quicks produced the big wickets and their spinners stifled the Sunrisers Hyderabad batsmen
KKR's quicks produced the big wickets and their spinners stifled the Sunrisers Hyderabad batsmen
Scorer: Chandan Duorah | Commentator: @saurabh_42
11.25 pm:. Right, that brings us to the end of our coverage for this game. Of course the IPL caravan has just started rolling, so we're here throughout. See you all tomorrow. Till then, on behalf of Varun Shetty, Deiva Muthu and Chandan Duorah, this is Saurabh Somani signing off.
Nitish Rana is the Man of the Match: I thought the ball was in my slot (first ball, off Bhuvneshwar) and luckily I got a four. My game-plan is always that if the ball is in my slot I'll try to hit it. I was backing myself and looking to hit balls. I've been playing spin since childhood, so in a way, it's in my blood.
Eoin Morgan: Delighted. The build up to the tournament has been pretty good. The camp before the tournament, the guys seemed to gel really well. I thought it was magnificent the guys batted today at the top of the order in particularly, Nitish and Tripathi. And the bowling too, couldn't have asked for a better start. It was a tight game against a really tough side. There's a huge amount of thought and structure that goes into decisions on the field. We've got a great head coach and support staff. The IPL is all about results. I think guys buying in to what we are trying to do. Bhajji starting really well in the first over and not playing a part after that but using his experience to guide the others just shows that. Really happy with the start. We were very happy with our score, we thought if we bowled half decently well we should get over the line.
11.16 pm: Presentations coming up.
Aaqib Issa: "Samad is batting way too low. He needs to play the pinch hitter role and should have come in place of Nabi or Shankar, similar to what happened last year in the playoffs, SRH not learning from their mistakes"
Kiran: "Big positive for SRH is that their batsmen are capable of looking like chasing this 187 with out a significant contribution from Warner's bat. A quickfire 25 by Warner would have made alot of difference to this chase"
Prasidh Krishna: I was trying my best, the wicket was slow so I had to do something from my side (on hitting 140+ consistently). We have had a great 10-day camp and from there everybody had been in good nick and it showed. Everyone contributed to the win today. The wickets was slow and not really easy to hit off the length and they did really well (Rana and Tripathi). Lot of games coming into the IPL was a great positive for me, the more games you play the more you understand your bowling. Confidence is upbeat now because I've been coming off a good series. Would like to continue the way I've been doing and contribute to the team's win. Some of the biggest hitters are in my side, I'm fortunate for that.
David Warner: I didn't think there were that many runs in that wicket. They adapted really well. We just mis-executed a little bit (with the ball). And the way that we lost two early wickets but fought hard through Jonny and Manish, was good. If you over-pitched, it came on a little bit. They had some height in their bowling attack, it helped with the cross-seam balls. Good momentum going into the tournament (with the batting), but plenty of games to come. Four games at this venue so we should be getting used to this square.
11.02 pm: So that's a 10-run win for KKR to kick off their IPL 2021. SRH managed to reduce the defeat margin, but they'll have some work to do and combinations to ponder, you suspect. Victory was set up by the batting heroics of Nitish Rana and Rahul Tripathi. Rare off day for Bhuvneshwar Kumar, though Rashid Khan was his usual spectacular self. Bairstow then gave SRH hope in the chase, but some quality defensive bowling at the end, particularly from Dre Russ, meant SRH weren't quite in the chase at the end.
22 needed from the last over. I'm guessing Dre Russ will bowl it. Will be tough to get that many off him.
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"The thing that impressed me the most was the method that he used," captain Morgan said of Rana's knock
KKR's quicks produced the big wickets and their spinners stifled the Sunrisers Hyderabad batsmen
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