Gambhir keeps his cool after the rain

Cricket365

Gautam Gambhir played a captain’s knock in a rain shortened chase to help the Kolkata Knight Riders eliminate the Sunrisers Hyderabad from the IPL.

The Sunrisers got a full twenty overs in before a long rain delay that saw the game completed well after midnight in Bangalore.

David Warner’s men posted a disappointing total of 128/7 in an innings that never really got off the ground.

A sedate opening stand of 25 from 26 balls was ended when Shikhar Dhawan (11) nicked off to Umesh Yadav.

Warner (37) and Kane Williamson (24) continued to struggle to score and consumed 8.2 overs with their stand of 50 before the Kiwi became Nathan Coulter-Nile’s first victim of the night.

Skipper Warner was bowled by Piyush Chawla without adding to the total and leaving two new batsmen at the crease.

Umesh picked up the wicket of Yuvraj Singh (9) as the veteran tried to accelerate before Coulter-Nile’s double strike in the 19th over sent Vijay Shankar (22) and Chris Jordan (0) packing off successive balls.

Naman Ohja (16) and Bipul Sharma (2*) saw them to the close with the former holing out off the final ball of the innings.

Then the rain came down and no play was possible until after midnight with KKR having to chase an adjusted target of 48 from six overs.

It turned into an eventful six overs starting with a roller-coaster first over that saw Chris Lynn (6) clear the fence off his first ball before nicking off to Bhuveneshwar Kumar off the third ball of the innings and his second.

Yusuf Pathan was run out having faced just one ball after some sharp work by Kumar and KKR were 7/2 in the first over.

Gambhir whacked a four to finish the over though and despite losing Robin Uthappa (1) to Jordan whose entire contribution to the IPL will be scoring a first ball duck and bowling one over.

The skipper hit 32 not out including one streaky top-edged six with Ishank Jaggi (5*) doing little more than watching Gambhir from the non-strikers end.

The job is not over for KKR who will face the Mumbai Indians in a Qualifier for the right to take on the Rising Pune Supergiant in the IPL final.