'...Till the End': KKR Mentor Gautam Gambhir Reacts After Harshit Rana's Magical Spell Leads to 'Plot Twist'

What panned out at the Eden Gardens on Saturday night wasn’t meant for the fainthearted. Home team Kolkata Knight Rider pulled of a heist against the Sunrisers Hyderabad, clinching a thrilling four-run win to kick off their campaign in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024. It wasn’t an out-and-out dominance from the Shreyas Iyer-led side but a classic example of teamwork. Be it their batting or bowling, KKR stuttered repeatedly on the field but individuals stepped up and played their part at the right time.

When the top-order faltered, Phil Salt turned resilient with a half-century before passing the baton to Andre Russell. The Caribbean allrounder then turned up the heat with his blistering 64-run knock off just 25 balls with 7 sixes and 3 fours to power KKR to 208 from nowhere.

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And if the 200-plus score seemed sufficient for an easy win, Heinrich Klaasen was right up there to prove this notion wrong. SRH had almost lost their way until the wicketkeeper-batter dragged the innings on his own to the doorstep of a heroic triumph. But with the ball, Russell and Harshit Rana did the rest to seal a close win.

After a memorable win, team mentor and former captain Gautam Gambhir took to microblogging site X and stated that they believed in themselves and were determined to win till the end.

The twist in the tale

Chasing the imposing target on a beautiful batting deck at Eden Gardens, Hyderabad found themselves at 145/5, needing 61 runs from 19 balls before Klaasen came in. The South African was in red-hot form and took IPL’s costliest buy Mitchell Starc to cleaners smashing him for three sixes, while Bengal cricketer Shahbaz Ahmed ended the Aussie left-arm quick’s over with another six. That 26-run over meant Starc, who joined the Knight Riders for a record Rs 24.75 crore, finished with woeful figures of 4-0-53-0.

Needing 13 off the last over, KKR gambled with rookie pacer Rana as he was hammered for seven runs off the first two balls. But first, he dismissed Shahbaz and then Klaassen off his penultimate delivery, which came through a superb backward diving catch by Suyash Sharma, to give the local side a fantastic win.

The Hyderabad outfit needed five runs off the last ball but skipper Pat Cummins failed to connect the ball, as Rana finished with fine figures (3/33).