KKR vs SRH | Violent Venky and precise bowling deny toothless SRH final revenge at Eden Gardens

Asked to bat first on a spicy Eden Gardens deck with substantial grass covering, Kolkata Knight Riders found going hard in the powerplay before Quinton de Kock succumbed after a six-ball struggle to Pat Cummins in the second over. Sunil Narine followed suit four deliveries later to bring Mumbaikars Ajinkya Rahane and Angkrish Raghuvanshi together to the crease in the third over. The skipper injected life back into proceedings with three sixes in as many overs and the youngster took his lead to add a couple sweet blows of his own to take the powerplay score to a healthy 53/2. With the ball sticking in the pitch and not coming onto the bat properly, the likes of Harshal Patel and Zeeshan Ansari tried to keep a leash on the scoring rates but sloppy fielding combined with the two batters’ ability to pierce gaps meant the partnsership had grown to 68 by the halfway stage. Raghuvanshi took the opportunity to break the shackles as he unished Zeeshan for a six and a four but the wristspinner recovered well to have Rahane nick behind on the final ball. Raghuvanshi nearly made it two wickets in two, only for Nitish Kumar Reddy to drop a dolly with him on 43 and the batter capitalized to get to his half-century. However, Kamindu Mendis made him bite the dust soon after and with new batters Venkatesh Iyer and Rinku Singh struggling, a score of 122/4 after 15 overs looked ominous for Kolkata. That is until the 23 crore man discovered new gears and a sense of timing as he pummelled Shami for two fours in the 16th, inspiring Rinku to go one better against Harshal in the next over, before the two combined to punish Simarjeet Singh for 17. Even so, the best was yet to come, as Venkatesh struck two brilliant boundaries off yorkers in a 21-run Cummins over, and dealt some more damage to Harshal in the final over prior to departing for a 29-ball 60 and helping set a daunting target of 201.

In response, Vaibhav Arora managed to extract some prodigous swing early on, and needed just two deliveries to dispatch Travis Head after being hit for a four first up. Harshit Rana took care of Abhishek Sharma at the other end before Arora returned to eliminate Ishan Kishan in a wicket maiden, and the Sunrisers suddenly found themselves reeling at 9/3 after three overs. Nitish tried to revitalize the team’s efforts with two boundaries and a maximum in the penultimate over of the powerplay, only to fall victim to Andre Russell immediately after the fielding restrictions ended even as Kamindu Mendis managed to extract 18 runs from the over. Sunil Narine and Varun Chakravarthy gave the visitors no room to turn the momentum around, the former using the pressure to have Kamindu holed oout while the latter returned Aniket Verma to the dugout. All the onus for the chase thus fell on Heinrich Klaasen’s shoulders and albeit the Proteas kept them in the game till the 15th over with 33 off just 21 balls, his wicket triggered one final collapse as the team fell a mammoth 80 runs short after being bowled out with 20 balls left in the innings. How bhai?

Venkatesh Iyer played an explosive innings, scoring 60 runs off just 29 balls with 7 fours and 3 sixes. That’s a strike rate of over 206, which is a blistering pace! 👏#KKRvsSRHpic.twitter.com/UvdduD3jMu

— Jyotsna Singh (@Jyotsna7565) April 3, 2025

The bowlers executed their plans perfectly, never letting SRH settle.
Klassen gone.#KKRvsSRH

— Anurag singh (@anuragverse) April 3, 2025