Sunrisers came into this match after a humiliating loss from Royal Challengers Bangalore, whereas KKR were playing their first away match this season after a loss from MI at home.
Sunrisers Hyderabad won the toss and chose to bat as this was a day math and dew wouldn’t come into play. But the decision of SRH soon turned out to be a wrong one as KKR (who often rely on their spinners) pacers led by Umesh Yadav, Morne Morkel, and Andre Russell took wickets at regular intervals and didn’t let any pair set a partnership.
Coming in to chase 143 in 20 overs, KKR didn’t have to break much sweat has their opening pair gave a good start. Thanks to captain Gautam Gambhir’s unbeaten 90 runs. KKR won the match by 8 wickets.
In our pre-match review, we had predicted that the winner of the match will be determined by the success of opening pairs. KKR openers did well and they won the match. Take a look at other important stats of this match –
Gambhir gets his cap back – Gambhir was second in the list of highest run scorers this IPL before the match began. However, he started off with a good partnership with Uthappa and scored a half century to get back the Orange Cap.
Highest opening partnership this IPL – Gambhir and Uthappa scored 92 runs for the opening stand, this is the highest opening partnership in this season of IPL. Overall this is the third highest partnership by runs for any wicket in IPL 2016.
5000 run club – Gambhir with his half century became the fourth Indian player and 16th worldwide in T20s to score 5000 or more runs. This list is led by Suresh Raina (5971), Rohit Sharma (5739) and Virat Kohli (5547).
Average like no other – Gambhir averages 192 in the 3 matches he has played in this season of IPL. This is mainly because he has remained not-out twice in the two matches of the 3 he has played.