[Watch] T Natarajan's double strike puts KKR in deep trouble against SRH in Match 3 of IPL 2024

SunRisers Hyderabad (SRH) pacer T Natarajan got his team off to a fantastic start against the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) in Match 3 of IPL 2024 at the Eden Gardens on Saturday, March 23.

In a span of three deliveries, Natarajan sent back both Venkatesh Iyer and Shreyas Iyer to suck all the momentum out of KKR's powerplay that was given by Phil Salt. Despite the unfortunate run out of Sunil Narine, both Salt and Venkatesh flew out of the blocks for Kolkata.

However, T Natarajan stopped Venkatesh Iyer in his tracks as the latter looked to thrash the pacer through the covers. The left-hander could only hit it straight to Marco Jansen at covers and he straightaway knew he had thrown away a promising start.

Skipper Shreyas Iyer then tried to clear mid-off by driving a delivery on the up from Natarajan. However, Pat Cummins timed his stretch to perfection and sent his opposite number back to the shed for a duck.

Here's the video of the first three wickets:

Natarajan has conceded just nine runs in his two overs so far and will be back towards the backend of the KKR innings as their death-over specialist.

---

KKR need their lower middle order to fire

Kolkata Knight Riders' innings has been full of ebbs and flow as SRH have kept finding a way to chip away with wickets at crucial junctures. Salt scored a fine half-century and Ramandeep Singh played a quickfire cameo of 35 to give some momentum to the hosts.

But the onus is on both Rinku Singh and Andre Russell to take the Knight Riders to a competitive total. The SunRisers need Bhuvneshwar Kumar and T Natarajan to be accurate enough to keep both Rinku and Russell at bay. It will be interesting to see how they mix it up.