The Hyderabad Heist - Chakaravarthy holds nerve in final over to keep Kolkata in the hunt

On a day quite a few blinders were taken in the field, Kolkata Knight Riders and Sunrisers Hyderabad took turns at frittering away their advantage till the home team imploded in what should have been a breeze of a chase, considering they needed 38 from 30 at one point in time.

Defending eight in the final over, Varun Chakaravarthy came around the wicket to target length spots on the leg-stump line. Abdul Samad took a single and Bhuvaneshwar Kumar got a leg-bye before Samad was caught at the deep. A dot and a single later, Kumar had to get six off the last ball but Chakaravarthy prevailed, giving KKR a much-needed win to stay in contention for the playoffs.

When the final over of an innings reads 0, W, W, 0, 1, 2, it tells you how well Sunrisers' bowling plans have worked. T Natarajan churned out yorkers at will and backed up a missed throw with a superb run out to completely negate a 13-run over conceded by Bhuvaneshwar Kumar. With that, Natarajan finished with an economy of 7.5 to round off a bowling performance where Kumar averaged 8.25 runs per over, Mayank Markande 7.5 and even Aiden Markram with 8.

The telling blows were dealt earlier though, by Marco Jansen in the second over. Relying on the bounce he naturally extracts, Jansen was consistently challenging batters trying to play on the front foot. First to go was Rahmanullah Gurbaz, who inexplicably tried to attack Jansen first ball he had faced. Jansen however surprised him with his pace and pulled back the length a bit, forcing a top edge that Harry Brook had no problem catching. The next wicket came in the form of Venkatesh Iyer and straight out of the Test cricket manual as Jansen banged the ball short, cramping Iyer who was looking to hook but could only glove the ball through to the wicketkeeper.

Two wickets in one over and Janson had effectively sent KKR into repair mode for almost the entire part of their innings, especially after Jason Roy was dismissed cheaply within the Powerplay. Saving grace once again was Rinku Singh, this time with Nitish Rana as they added 61 for the fourth wicket in 34 balls. But Sunrisers were not just great with the ball, but also in fielding. If Markram running back almost 20 yards to brilliantly catch Nitish off his own bowling stalled KKR in their tracks, Abdul Samad diving in front to pouch Rinku at the deep in the last over effectively denied KKR the final flourish they were seeking.

With the pitch slowing down and no sign of dew, 171 was going to be a tricky chase though. Not introducing spin till the end of the Powerplay, KKR used three seamers in the first six overs. And the brief was visible—everyone tried to take pace off the ball. Mayank Agarwal was bounced out, Abhishek Sharma was caught by Andre Russell at the deep before the Jamaican got the better of Rahul Tripathi despite leaking 14 runs off his first three balls. Things came to a head once Harry Brook was adjudged leg-before, triggering a phase where SRH couldn't score a boundary for 19 balls till Heinrich Klaasen launched Anukul Roy for two sixes in the 11th over.

As the chase was going neck-and-neck, all Sunrisers needed was to keep their calm and hit the occasional boundary or six. Klaasen and Markram seemed to do that with ease in a 48-ball 70-run stand till Shardul Thakur lured Klaasen into trying a heave over the longer midwicket boundary but was caught by Russell at the rope. Markram punched Thakur through mid-off for a four before Samad cleared extra cover to keep the equation in their favour.

Chakaravarthy was allowed a four-run over before Markram thumped Vaibhav Arora for a boundary first ball of the 17th over. Arora quickly came up with a wide bouncer that Markram tried to smash, tennis style, and he too couldn't clear Rinku at the deep. Sunrisers could still have won risk-free from that juncture but they lost their composure under sustained pressure from KKR's bowlers.