"Nerves of steel" - Twitter reacts as Harshit Rana, Andre Russell star in KKR's thrilling win vs SRH

Published - 24 Mar 2024, 12:59 AM | Updated - 23 Aug 2024, 10:21 PM

The 3rd match of the Indian Premier League 2024 (IPL 2024) was played between the Shreyas Iyer-led Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) and the Pat Cummins-led Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) at the Eden Gardens, Kolkata on Saturday, March 23.

Sunrisers Hyderabad won the toss and elected to field first in the match. They were off to a good start in the match as the SRH bowling unit did a fantastic job and reduced the opposition to 51/4.

The Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) players in Sunil Narine, Venkatesh Iyer, Shreyas Iyer, and Nitish Rana were back in the hut after failing to contribute significant runs with bat. The hosts came under tremendous pressure and looked like they would get bundled out for a low total.

Despite losing the top order, KKR had great batters like Rinku Singh and Andre Russell, who are game-changers on their own. However, Chandrakant Pandit and Gautam Gambhir made a bold decision and promoted Ramandeep Singh up the order to join Phil Salt in the middle and stabilize the innings.

The KKR debutant didn’t disappoint at all as he played an attacking brand of cricket and smashed the bowlers all over the park. He was involved in an amazing 54-run partnership with the opening batsman Salt.

After the dismissal of Salt and Ramandeep, Rinku Singh and Andre Russell joined forces and annihilated the SRH bowling unit. Especially, Russell looked in beast mode and smashed some monstrous sixes. In the end, the Kolkata Knight Riders posted a massive total of 208/7 on the board. Andre Russell smashed 64 runs off 25 balls while Salt scored 54 runs off 40 balls. Also, Rinku Singh and Ramandeep Singh scored 23 and 35 runs respectively. For Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH), the top performer in the bowling department was T Natarajan, who bagged three wickets for 32 runs.

Chasing the target, SRH openers Abhishek Sharma and Mayank Agarwal provided their team with a good start. They both batted cautiously and attacked from time to time. They were back in the hut after contributing identical runs – 32.

The dismissal of the openers led to the arrival of Rahul Tripathi and Aiden Markram in the middle. The duo tried to chip in with some runs but they weren’t able to score quickly and were dismissed after scoring 20 and 18 runs respectively.

As the match progressed Team KKR looked set for a win, but that was changed in the 19th over when Heinrich Klaasen destroyed Mitchell Starc. Notably, the left-arm pacer was blasted for 26 runs, and that over brought SRH back in the game.

In the last over, Harshit Rana was handed the ball by Shreyas Iyer and he showed nerves of steel by defending 13 runs against SRH power-hitters and guided his team to a 4-run win. Notably, the pacer was smashed for a six on the first ball, but he made an exceptional comeback.

Here’s how fans reacted on X after the KKR vs SRH IPL 2024 Match:

https://twitter.com/rajasthanroyals/status/1771600011463209085?t=IQEnHFkKim-GlyqCIDB0ug&s=19

Tagged:

Andre Russell Harshit Rana Heinrich Klaasen Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024 IPL 2024 KKR Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) SRH Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH)