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Kolkata Knight Riders registered a thrilling victory over Sunrisers Hyderabad in their first match of the IPL 2024 campaign on Saturday. Despite posting a solid total of 208/7, KKR faced a major scare when Heinrich Klaasen (63 off 29 balls) launched an aggressive attack in the final overs of the chase. However, Harshit Rana held his nerve to deny the Sunrisers victory, dismissing the dangerous South African late on.
Early in the game, Andre Russell produced a brilliant knock after the Knight Riders suffered a middle-order collapse; Reaching the 13th innings with a team total of 105/5, Russell took over SRH’s attack, smashing three fours and seven sixes, ending his innings with an unbeaten 64 off just 25 balls.
In the previous season, Russell’s performance for KKR left a lot to be desired, with just 222 runs in 14 matches, raising doubts about his retention by the franchise. However, in the first match of the season, Russell silenced his critics with a spectacular display against SRH’s bowling attack; However, Gavaskar cautioned against drawing premature conclusions based on a single game.
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. He batted well and it has nothing to do with anyone coming in there (KKR). If he doesn’t do well in the next innings, will he blame Gautam Gambhir? Let’s take it seriously. It’s a bit easy,” Gavaskar said. star sports.
“When you saw someone like Bhuveneshwar Kumar, who was training his Yorkers so well on the practice pitches, bowling leg deliveries (in the match), which was all in goal for Andre Russell… When someone like Russell He hits the ball, into the stands, no one can stop him,” Gavaskar added.
Gambhir joined KKR ahead of the 2024 edition, returning to the franchise for the first time since 2017, when he left the team as a player. The former opener is the only KKR captain to have won the IPL title; He did it twice, in 2012 and 2014.
KKR travels to Bengaluru
The team will now travel to Bengaluru to take on Royal Challengers Bengaluru in their second match of the season on March 29. RCB faced an opening day defeat at the hands of defending champions Chennai Super Kings on March 22.