Gambhir guides KKR to win against Sunrisers

Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) skipper Gautam Gambhir guided his team to a win in the rain-hit tie against Sunrisers Hyderabad at Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bengaluru, on last night. With rain playing spoilsport, KKR needed just 48 off 6 overs as the Duckworth-Lewis (D/L) method came into play. Hyderabad had managed to score 128/7 in their 20 overs at Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru. With rain almost dashing Kolkata’s hopes of coming out to chase Hyderabad’s total, KKR would have been more than happy when rain finally relented and Kolkata got a revised target. David Warner and his boys weren’t too keen to come out as a wash-out would mean that they would go through as they had finished higher in the points table in the group phase. And even though it wasn’t the perfect start for KKR as Bhuvneshwar Kumar sent back Chris Lynn (6) and Yusuf Pathan (0) off successive deliveries in the first over itself, skipper Gambhir and Ishank Jaggi ensured that there were no further mishaps. Robin Uthappa too failed to impress after opening the batting with Lynn instead of the Australian’s new opening partner Sunil Narine. Uthappa scored just 1 off 2 deliveries as his pull off Chris Jordan landed straight into the palm of Shikhar Dhawan at the mid-wicket boundary. But Gambhir and Jaggi kept rotating the strike and punished the bad deliveries as Gambhir finished unbeaten on 32 off 19 balls and Jaggi managed 5 off 8 balls as KKR reached home with 4 balls remaining. Earlier for Sunrisers, skipper Warner (37), Williamson (24), Vijay Shankar (22) were amongst the runs.