The defending champions KKR had a disappointing season as they failed to qualify for the playoffs. KKR ended it more devastatingly with a 110-run defeat against SRH. SRH started and ended the season with the same approach, but it didn’t work well in the middle.
Poor team selection and Bowling strategies
The top three of SRH are left-handers. KKR dropped Moen Ali and played Anrich Nortje in his place. He got bashed for 60 runs in his 4 overs. The pitch had zero assistance for the bowlers, and Nortje’s length deliveries were smashed into the stands.
They could have tried Spencer Johnson at least, who could have bowled fuller length into the stumps and tried for the wicket. Both Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma had problems with left-arm fast bowlers swinging with the new ball. We saw what Mitchell Starc did to them in last year’s finals.
KKR bowlers gave width to both the openers and allowed them to swing their bats freely. Both the openers got into their zone and gave a destructive start of 92 runs in 6.5 overs. Narine dismissed Abhishek Sharma ( 32 runs off 16 ). Klaasen came to the crease next.
Again, they were bowling the ball in the slot. Everyone looked like highlights. They didn’t try any wide yorkers or slower ones wide outside the line. All the deliveries were within the reach of the batters. Sunil Narine bowled one ball wide outside the off and Travis Head was caught at Long off ( 76 off 40 ). The team score was 175/2 in 12.4 overs at that time.
Henrich Klaasen won the battle against Varun Chakravarthy this time. This affected the whole bowling line up. Varun was smashed for 54 runs in his 3 overs. Narine took 2 wickets but he also went for 42 runs in his 4 overs, and he was the most economical bowler of the day with an economy of 10.50. SRH finished their innings with 278/3 in 20 overs.
Batting collapse
Chasing a huge target, they had no other option than going for the kill from the first ball. Narine started well by hitting the second ball of the innings for a six. He scored 31 runs off 16 balls and got out to Unadkat in the fourth over. Unadkat decieved him with his slower one. He also dismissed Captain Rahane ( 15 off 8 ) in the last over of the powerplay
Another opener De Kock struggled to time the ball. He got out for 9 runs off 13 balls in the 7th over bowled by Eshan Malinga. Harsh Dubey came to bowl the 8th over and removed both Rinku Singh ( 9 off 6 ) and Andre Russell ( 0 off 1 ) in back-to-back deliveries.
SRH hit the final nail in the coffin there. KKR were reduced to 70/5 in 8 overs, and could never recover from that. Angkrish Raghuvanshi ( 14 off 18 ), couldn’t create much impact today. Manish Pandey ( 37 off 23 ) and Harshit Rana ( 34 off 21 ) entertained the fans with their sixes for sometime.
Vaibhav Arora showed an example how to not complete a run. KKR were all out for 168 in 18.4 overs. They lost the match by 110 runs and this is their biggest margin of defeat in the IPL.
Also Read: SRH vs KKR: Heinrich Klaasen’s 37 Balls Explosive Century Lights Up Delhi