IPL 2021: Match 3, SRH vs KKR – Who Said What

The third match of the Indian Premier League saw action between Sunrisers Hyderabad and Kolkata Knight Riders. KKR owned their opening game of the season as they bagged the clash by 10 runs. David Warner won the toss and invited the opposition to bat first. KKR started their opening game on full fire as Nitish Rana (80 of 56) and Rahul Tripathi (53 of 29) broke the back of Hyderabad’s bowlers.

Rana was declared as the player of the match for wreaking havoc on the Hyderabad bowlers endlessly. Dinesh Karthik’s quickfire cameo towards the end (22 of 9) meant that KKR posted good 187 runs on the board. Mohammad Nabi and Rashid Khan took to two wickets for SRH with the latter maintaining the best economy for them.

Prasidh Krishna brings the A game for KKR

While chasing the target, Jonny Bairstow (66 of 40) and Manish Pandey (61 off 44) gave a lot of hopes to the Hyderabad lot but couldn’t take the game over the line. Abdul Samad’s fiery 19 of 8 also kept the game alive till the very end but they fell short by 10 runs. Prasidh Krishna picked two wickets for KKR while Pat Cummins remained the most economical one from the lot.

Losing skipper, David Warner said-

I didn’t think there were that many runs on this wicket. They adapted really well, had a good partnership. We misexecuted the first ball of most overs and then conceded a lot at the end. We lost early wickets, and Jonny and Manish got us in a good position, so we had our chances. The dew made a difference. If the bowlers overpitched, it was easy to hit it, and with the height in their team, and with the cross-seam, it stopped a little bit on us. We would like to have won the first game, but we have four more games at this venue and hopefully we will get used to the square and the dimensions of this ground.

Winning skipper, Eoin Morgan said-

Delighted. Build up to the tournament has been pretty good. The camp that we had pre-tournament, the guys gelled well. Never quite sure what performance they will produce. Today was quite magnificent the way the guys batted. Guys at the top of the order. Nitish and Tripathi were absolutely outstanding and set up the game for our middle order to play in the manner we want to play. Certainly the bowling, we couldn’t have asked for a better start. Chopped and changed a bit in the powerplay. Wouldn’t say that. Huge amount of structure that goes into the decisions on the field. Have got a fantastic head coach in McCullum. Great back room staff. Main job is to get the best out of the squad. IPL is all about the results. Guys buying into what we want to do. Bhajji starting really well in the first over and then not playing a part but using his experience to get around the guys in the game shows the selflessness in the side. Nice to start like this it’s obviously a long tournament. We were very happy with the score. We thought if we bowled half-decently we should get over the line.

Player of the match, Nitish Rana said-

I thought the ball was in my slot so I went for it and luckily got four off my first ball. In my mind there’s only one thing: play my shots if the ball is there. Just backed myself. Have played a lot of spin growing up.