April 12 (India Today) – Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) started their IPL 2021 campaign on a winning note and defeated Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) by 10 runs to become the third team with at least 100 wins in IPL.
Team’s co-owner and Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan could not hold his excitement and took to twitter to congratulate the players on achieving the special feat. In the tweet, he had a special mention reserved for veteran off-spinner Harbhajan Singh, who made his KKR debut on Sunday and bowled an over in the match.
“Good to hav our 100th IPL match win. Well done boys…@KKRiders @prasidh43 @DineshKarthik @NitishRana_27
#Rahul @Russell12A @harbhajan_singh ( good to see u even if briefly ) @Sah75official @patcummins30 actually all were so good to watch,” Shah Rukh Khan tweeted.
Notably, Mumbai Indians (120) and Chennai Super Kings (106) are the only other two teams in the competition to win 100 or more matches.
After being asked to bat first KKR posted 187 runs for the loss of 6 wickets. Opener Nitish Rana (80 off 56) and Rahul Tripathi (53 off 29) gave the 2-time champions a good foundation before the team stuttered due to fall of few quick wickets.
However, experienced wicketkeeper-batsman Dinesh Karthik played a quickfire unbeaten knock of 22 (9 balls) to help KKR post a challenging target for the Sunrisers.
SRH lost their captain David Warner and Wriddhiman Saha inside 3 overs but a 92-run partnership flourished between Manish Pandey and Jonny Bairstow. But things went haywire after the departure of the latter.
Manish Pandey managed to hit only one boundary in the last 6 overs as KKR won the match by 10 runs.
