In a game that had plenty of outstanding performances, Harshit Rana became the toast of Eden Gardens by picking up the crucial wickets of Shahbaz Ahmed and, more importantly, Heinrich Klaasen (63 off 29 balls) in the last over to power Kolkata Knight Riders to a thrilling four-run win over Sunrisers Hyderabad. Andre Russell also played a decisive role with a blazing 25-ball 64.
So near, yet so far
At the completion of the 17th over, SRH seemed to be going nowhere. They needed 60 off just three overs. Enter Klaasen. The wicketkeeper-bat, renowned for his pyrotechnics, matched Russell’s big hitting by cracking sixes. Amazingly, he didn’t essay a single boundary in his innings. He smacked Varun Chakravarthy for three sixes in the 18th. However, it was Klaasen’s meaty blows in the very next over that almost took the game away from KKR’s grasp.
Mitchell Starc, bought by KKR for a whopping 24.75 crore, was taken to the cleaners, with Klaasen and Shahbaz collecting 26 runs. Klaasen mostly stayed deep in the crease and also shuffled across to checkmate Starc and tonk three more hits beyond the boundary rope. At that juncture, SRH required a mere 13 runs to script a jailbreak. But there was more action waiting to happen.
Harshit Rana – Hero of the Match
The tall pace bowler had already made an impact by removing Mayank Agarwal with some good hit-the-deck pace bowling. But it was his last-over heroics that will reverberate for many years to come. Under severe pressure, he blended some hit-the-deck bowling with off-pace deliveries to not just keep the opposition under check but also pick up the vital wickets of both Shahbaz and Klaasen.
He was also helped by Suyash Sharma, who pouched an excellent catch at short third man to send Klaasen back to the hut. Harshit then provided the finishing touches to the game by bowling a dot ball to Pat Cummins. It was a slower short delivery from Rana and Cummins, for once, couldn’t take a side past the finishing line.
Russell and bazooka hits
Until Klaasen ran riot with his power-hitting, it was Russell who had hogged the limelight. The old warhorse compiled a superb undefeated 64, which included as many as seven sixes. Russell had come out to bat with his side in a bit of trouble at 119 for 6. He began to find his hitting range in the 16th over as he took a heavy toll off Mayank Markande.
But it was in the penultimate over when Russell took his game to a higher plane. The experienced Bhuvneshwar Kumar was taken for 26 runs. In that over, Bhuvneshwar bowled an excellent short ball that was angled into Russell. Yet, that was deposited into the stands via a thick top edge.
Earlier, in very good conditions for batting, KKR were in a spot of bother at 51 for 4. Phil Salt and Ramandeep Singh then resurrected the innings with a 54-run stand. At that stage, very few could have envisaged the kind of drama that would follow. In a nutshell, it turned out to be a quintessential high-voltage T20 game.