Follow UsHaving been bought for INR 23.75 crore, a lot was expected of Venkatesh Iyer. He finally came good against Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH), slamming 60 off just 29 deliveries. He was involved in a 91-run stand for the fifth wicket with Rinku Singh, which gave KKR some momentum after losing two quick wickets. He really teed off in the end, with his last nine deliveries fetching as many as 30 runs.
Young Angkrish Raghuvanshi scored his first fifty since doing so on his debut last year. He got off to starts in the last few matches in IPL 2025, but was unable to convert them. He did so in this game, which bodes well for KKR.
The same can be said for Rinku Singh as well, who scored his first 30-plus since 2023. He fell off the radar last season, but his unbeaten 17-ball 32 could just be the beginning of yet another successful tournament for the southpaw.
With an average of 36.3 and an economy of 10.1, SRH were the worst bowling unit of the IPL 2024, and they have continued to be poor in the bowling department in the IPL 2025. SRH have the worst economy rate (11.1) this season as well, having conceded totals of 243, 193, 166 and 200.
Tonight, KKR were 122/4 at the end of 15 overs before SRH ended up leaking 78 runs in the last five overs. Mohammed Shami gave away 12 before Harshal Patel and Simarjeet Singh leaked 32 runs in the next two overs. Skipper Pat Cummins got whacked for 21 in the penultimate over before Harshal finished the innings with a 13-run over.
The Knight Riders smoked 14 boundaries between overs 16-20 - the most they have hit in the death overs in the IPL.
The SRH bowlers were expensive last season but the batters made up and scored more runs than they conceded. Even in their first game of the IPL 2025, SRH conceded 242 against Rajasthan Royals (RR), but only after smoking 286 while batting first. It looked like a similar trend would follow for the rest of the IPL 2025, however, things have gone horribly wrong in the last three encounters.
SRH got 190/9 vs Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) and 163 all out vs Delhi Capitals (DC), but those were far from challenging totals as they found out in the second innings. Against KKR, SRH put on their worst batting display yet, getting bundled out for just 120.
Travis Head, Abhishek Sharma and Ishan Kishan could only manage eight runs between them against Vaibhav Arora and Harshit Rana as Hyderabad lost their top-three wickets inside three overs. They were never going to recover from that collapse, and suffered their third consecutive defeat.