IPL 2019 highlights: Bairstow, Warner lead Sunrisers to 9-wicket victory

Chasing a target of 160, Warner struck 67 off 38 balls hitting 3 fours and five sixes while Bairstow punished KKR attack with seven boundaries and four Sixes in his unbeaten knock of 80 off 43 balls

2:17 PM

Here’s what happened when Kolkata hosted Hyderabad

In the Match 2 of VIVO Indian Premier League 2019 (IPL 2019), Andre Russell smashed an explosive 49 to spoil David Warner's scintillating IPL comeback as Kolkata Knight Riders pulled off a dramatic six-wicket win over Sunrisers Hyderabad at The Eden Gardens on Sunday. Needing 53 runs from last three overs, the powerful Jamaican changed the course of the match with his big-hitting against Siddharth Kaul, creaming off 19 runs from that over. He retained the strike by taking a smart single and continued his assault on Bhuvneshwar Kumar, who too bled 19 runs in the penultimate over as KKR sealed the 182-run chase with two balls to spare. Russell hammered four sixes and an equal number of boundaries in run sequence that read 6-6-1-4-1-4-6-4-0-6-1. Youngster Shubman Gill (18 not out) completed the formalities with two sixes off Shakib-Al-Hasan.
 
Promoted to open with Sunil Narine, Nitish Rana made full use of the opportunity and kept them in the hunt with a 47-ball 68. But he departed shortly after a 12-minute interruption caused by tower lights failure. The momentum slowly shifted in favour of SRH but Russell in a matter of minutes changed the complexion of the match.
 
Earlier, Warner made a stupendous comeback with a scintillating 85, helping his side reach a challenging 181/3. Putting behind the embarrassing ball tampering scandal, that kept him out last year, the Aussie smashed three sixes and nine boundaries in his 53-ball knock. Vijay Shankar also made a fine return to the Orange Army with a quick-fire unbeaten 24-ball 40 (2x4, 2x6) following Warner's exit in the 16th over. Warner's 37th IPL fifty also made him the first cricketer in IPL to have most 50-plus scores (40) ahead of Virat Kohli (38) as the Aussie also has three centuries. Jonny Bairstow complemented Warner well by giving him the maximum strike as the duo raced to 100-mark in 10.5 overs in their massive 118-run opening partnership.

2:01 PM

Hopefully we're in position to make play-offs before I leave: Bairstow

Sunrisers Hyderabad opener Jonny Bairstow on Saturday expressed his desire to help the team win the next two games and take few steps closer to making the IPL play-offs before heading back to join England's World Cup camp. Bairstow will play two more games for the Sunrisers -- against Kolkata Knight Riders on Sunday and against the defending champions Chennai Super Kings in Chennai on April 23.

After that he will go back home to prepare for the World Cup, beginning May 30 in UK, with the rest of the England ODI squad. "So far it has gone well. To be in the top five leading run scorers...it is really very pleasing. Hopefully I can finish on a high in the next two games as well and we could be in the position to make the play-offs by the time I leave," said Bairstow during a round table conference here on the eve of the home game against Kolkata Knight Riders.
 

1:50 PM

Here are the squad of both the teams

Kolkata Knight Riders: Dinesh Karthik (c), Robin Uthappa, Chris Lynn, Shubman Gill, Andre Russell, Carlos Brathwaite, Sunil Narine, Piyush Chawla, Kuldeep Yadav, Nikhil Naik, Joe Denly, Shrikant Mundhe, Nitish Rana, Sandeep Warrier, Prasidh Krishna, Lockie Ferguson, Harry Gurney, Matt Kelly, KC Cariappa and Yarra Prithviraj.
 
Sunrisers Hyderabad: Kane Williamson (capt), Basil Thampi, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Deepak Hooda, Manish Pandey, T Natarajan, Ricky Bhui, Sandeep Sharma, Siddarth Kaul, Shreevats Goswami, Khaleel Ahmed, Yusuf Pathan, Billy Stanlake, David Warner, Rashid Khan, Mohammad Nabi, Shakib Al Hasan, Jonny Bairstow, Wriddhiman Saha, Martin Guptill, Vijay Shankar, Abhishek Sharma, Shahbaz Nadeem.

1:39 PM

Preview

A top-heavy Sunrisers Hyderabad will look to tame an Andre Russell-reliant Kolkata Knight Riders in a high pressure clash of the Indian Premier League. Both teams have eight points though SRH have played one match less. The hosts snapped their three-match losing streak with a win over table leaders CSK and KKR now need to do the same having lost their last four games.

The race to play-offs is heating up and both sides know the value of a win on Sunday. A rampaging Russell and Nitish Rana almost pulled off a miraculous win on Friday night after the KKR top-order left them with too much to do in the death overs. Russell even questioned the team's decision to send him lower down the order when the likes of Robin Uthappa struggled.

There is little doubt that the KKR think tank will be working overtime to get back to winnings ways. The hosts too have concerns of their own, mainly their over-reliance on openers David Warner and Jonny Bairstow, who will be leaving at the end of the week to join England's World Cup. When the opening duo has fired, SRH have done well but on other occasions the middle-order has let them down. The World Cup-bound Vijay Shankar is due for a big score and so is captain Kane Williamson.
 

Jonny Bairstow, David Warner. Photo: PTI