A relieving win for Kolkata Knight Riders that keep them alive in the competition for another day as they beat Sunrisers Hyderabad in a very close game by five-margins and keep their hopes for the play-off alive. It was pitch that had bounce with the new ball and then it eventually gave assistance to the spinners. KKR bowlers held their nerves despite not having much to defend and led by the lively Nitish Rana, they were able to restrict the Sunrisers ahead of the finishing line. Varun Chakaravarthy Wins Man of the Match Award in SRH vs KKR IPL 2023 Match.

Nitish Rana won the toss and opted to bat first. For the first time this season they had two overseas openers Jason Roy and Rahmanullah Gurbaz open the batting but they didn't get off to a great start as wickets tumbled in the powerplay. It was skipper Nitish Rana who started the counterattack, well supported by Rinku Singh at the other end. After Nitish perished, Andre Russell came in, tried to encash but not for long and KKR suffered a collapse from there ending up with a middling 171 on board.

Sunrisers Hyderabad started well but in a sudden spell of play lost four quick wickets. Heavylifting had to be done by Aiden Markram and Heinrich Klassen. They did exactly that and were taking the team crusing to victory. But Shardul Thakur picked up Klassn's wicket with his golden arm and SRH panicked henceforth. Varun Chakaravarthy had 9 to defend in his final over and he conceded only 3 runs off it handing KKR a memorable victory.

SRH vs KKR Stat Highlights:

# Rinku Singh has the highest runs in the death overs in IPL 2023

# No team has aggregated more runs and maintained a better run-rate than KKR in the middle-overs (7-15) this season: 801 runs at 8.9.

# Mayank Agarwal completes 2500 runs in IPL.

# Nitish Rana completes 2000 runs for KKR in IPL.

# Nitish Rana becomes the fourth player to score 2000-plus runs for Kolkata Knight Riders in IPL.

# Aiden Markram completes 3000 T20 runs.

# Andre Russell becomes the third batter to reach 600 sixes in T20s.

# Varun Chakaravarthy becomes first spinner to defend less than 10 runs in last over of an IPL match. Rollercoaster of Emotions! Kavya Maran’s Happy and Sad Reactions from SRH vs KKR IPL 2023 Match Go Viral.

A match that had some terrific bowling performances, some inspired fielding efforts, a thrilling end and some tense moments saw KKR come out on the winning side. They will be hopeful to live another day in the competition while for SRH, they have to introspect what went wrong for them, specially with their big purchase Harry Brook.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on May 05, 2023 01:19 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).