Kolkata Knight Riders defeated Sunrisers Hyderabad by five runs on Thursday to keep themselves alive for the Playoffs. Varun Chakravarthy was the hero of the Purple and Gold Brigade, as he conceded just three runs off the final over after coming to defend nine runs, leading SRH to an epic choke.
Chasing 172 in Match 47 of IPL 2023, SRH were in trouble early after losing their top three – Abhishek Sharma, Mayank Agarwal, and Rahul Tripathi – inside the Powerplay. Harry Brook failed to prove his worth again, departing without scoring after four balls, but Heinrich Klaasen made sure to keep them in the game. The South African wicket-keeper batter scored 36 off 20 balls and forged a 70-run partnership with Aiden Markram, who hit 41 off 40 balls. However, once Klaasen fell to Shardul Thakur in the 15th over, things went to turn around quickly. From requiring 38 off 30 balls, the equation went to nine off the last over until Chakravarthy’s exceptional bowling helped KKR win a famous contest.
Earlier, KKR’s ploy of bringing in two explosive openers Jason Roy and Rahmanullah Gurbaz did not work at all as the latter fell for a golden duck to Marco Jansen in the very second over of the innings. Roy did not last long either, losing his wicket after scoring 20 off 19 balls which led KKR to slip to 35/3 inside five overs, courtesy of Venkatesh Iyer’s yet another failure. Nitish Rana and Rinku Singh then steadied the ship, stitching a well-made 61-run stand before Andre Russell’s 15-ball 24 gave them hope to get past 180. However, losing wickets in regular intervals did not allow them to get there, as all SRH bowlers took at least a wicket to prevent them.