IPL 2019: SRH vs KKR: Captaincy move that cost KKR the game

The 38th match of the IPL saw Kolkata Knight Riders taking on Sunrisers Hyderabad in Hyderabad. SRH won the toss and decided to field first. Knight Riders kept their star yet out-of-form players, Kuldeep Yadav and Robin Uthappa out of this tie.

Sunil Narine got KKR off to a blistering start as he smashed 25 off just eight balls. Kolkata’s middle order woes, though, continued to hurt them as none of their middle order batsmen got going. Shubman Gill went for three and Nitish Rana soon followed suit as he scored a run-a-ball 11.

Chris Lynn held one end up and for some strange reason Dinesh Karthik first sent himself and then Rinku Singh and for all this time kept his team’s star batsman Andre Russell in the dugout.

All this meant that Russell entered the field with less than five overs remaining and in those five overs he barely got the strike.

This was a very poor decision from Dinesh Karthik, the captain. Sending your star player, who is at his destructive best, at number seven, hardly made any sense. Many of the cricketing pundits also criticized this move by KKR’s captain.

Russell himself mentioned that he wanted to bat up the order in a very recent interview from where he can have a bigger impact on the game.

Andre Russell's demotion meant that KKR couldn't get the finish they so badly needed and ended up scoring just 159 runs.

Chasing 160, the opening pair of David Warner and Jonny Bairstow came all guns blazing. They took the match away from KKR in no time as both batsmen scored fifties and Bairstow remained not out on 80.

SRH chased down the target with exactly five overs to spare and registered an important victory over Kolkata Knight Riders.

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