SRH beat KKR by 23 runs after Brook’s hundred helped them get to 228/4.
Miracles cannot occur daily. With a target of over 200 once more, the Kolkata Knight Riders’ innings nearly fell apart before Nitish Rana and Rinku Singh made a valiant effort to keep them in the game longer than anticipated. They ultimately lost by 23 runs, but the roughly 60,000 spectators were able to witness the IPL’s first century, scored by a player who is revising cricket manuals with centuries in multiple formats. Harry Brook’s IPL debut was less impressive than anticipated, but it was nonetheless a crash course in how to manage a Twenty20 inning when spinners are making run scoring difficult.
Brook thrives on speed and has trouble with spin, which is not a surprise. But he also finds a middle ground. By the end of his inning, Brook had hit 66 off 26 pitches from the pitchers. He had hit nine fours and three sixes, giving him a stunning strike rate of 253.84. Against spin, he only hit three fours in 29 balls, for a strike rate of 117.24 and just 34 runs. If Suyash Suyash hadn’t dropped Brook’s waist-high dolly when he was on 45, this game might have gone in a different direction, but Brook made the most of that break to make a strange hundred.
This is what Brooks did to get his hundred: By the third over, Brook had 31 runs off 11 balls, and SRH had 43 runs without a loss. After three more spins, he was on 39 from 17 runs. By the 10th, he had 49 points out of 31. Sunil Narine was in his element by then, bowling lines and lengths that make him one of the most effective T20 bowlers of all time. Andre Russell also got rid of Mayank Agarwal and Rahul Tripathi, which stopped Hyderabad’s run machine. But Brook waited, trying to get around KKR’s spinners while waiting for the pacers to come back into the game.
KKR was forced to return to pace bowling due to the manner in which Suyash was removed from the attack, particularly by SRH captain Aiden Markram, who struck three sixes off four balls over the course of two overs. With Ferguson’s speed once again exceeding 87 miles per hour, Brook was back in business. After dismissing Ferguson for 6, 4, 4, 4, in the 15th over, he went from 55 off 36 balls to 77 off 43. Two more overs later, Brook was on 84 from 47, and his strike rate had reached a plateau close to 180. Brook began with a strike rate of over 300 and ended with a rate of 181.81.
The remarkable aspect of Sunrisers Hyderabad’s innings, however, was that it was unaffected by Brook’s declining strike rate during the middle overs. Markram came out to score a 50 off 26 balls just as the innings was beginning to sputter, reviving the innings for Abhishek Sharma, who scored 32 off 17 balls. Only two batters scored fifty or more runs, but if strike rates are the true indicators of a team’s health, then SRH was in excellent shape.
For KKR to match up to this mayhem, it would have taken something truly exceptional. Rahmanullah Gurbaz struck with the opening delivery, and they lost two wickets in a row after that. Venkatesh Iyer, Sunil Narine, and KKR were hurriedly scanning the horizon. Rana, though, gave the team new life by striking out Umran Malik for 4, 6, 4, 4, 4, 6 in his opening over before concentrating on Marco Jansen and Washington Sundar.
The match was almost won by Rana before he was caught at sweeper cover following a 62-run partnership and a 71 with Rinku after being dropped on 68. A nearly tough ask of 32 from six balls was presented to KKR once more. The last-ball heroics, however, did not occur this time.
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