Kolkata Knight Riders 169 for 3 (Raghuvanshi 59, Rahane 43, Sakib 1-17) beat Sunrisers Hyderabad 165 (Head 61, Kishan 42, Varun 3-36, Tyagi 2-30, Narine 2-31) by seven wickets
Varun Chakravarthy and Sunil Narine thrived on a slower-than-usual Hyderabad pitch to halt the five-match Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) winning streak in IPL 2026.
Varun and Narine took five wickets between them to have SRH tumbling from 105 for 1 in the ninth over to 165 all out in 19 overs. Along the way, Narine joined the IPL's 200-wicket club.
Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) shaved 71 runs off the target in the powerplay and eventually sealed their third successive win, with seven wickets and ten balls to spare. Angkrish Raghuvanshi anchored the chase with a career-best 59 off 47 balls.
SRH's Headstart
Travis Head flew out of the blocks as usual, clattering Vaibhav Arora for four fours in the second over after SRH had opted to bat. Head didn't let the momentum let up against Narine, slog-sweeping him for six over square leg and then pumping him over mid-on for four in the third over.
Narine's opening over was much tighter. Bowling the first over for only the fourth time in his IPL career, he kept Abhishek Sharma to nine runs.
Head also lined up Cameron Green and went on to bring up his half-century off 22 balls. Kartik Tyagi bested Abhishek with a hard-length delivery that was clocked at almost 145kph, but Head maintained a high tempo, which was central to SRH passing 70 in the powerplay for the sixth time in ten innings in this IPL.
The former India batter feels they didn't look like they had a plan in the loss to KKR
(Mystery) spin to win
Head thumped Varun for 17 off five balls before the mystery spinner hit back to have him holing out in the ninth over. Head's dismissal triggered an irreparable SRH collapse. Varun proceeded to dismiss debutant R Smaran, who had come in for the unwell Nitish Kumar Reddy, and Aniket Verma.
Once the ball grew older, it wasn't easy to hit through the line. But that didn't stop SRH's batters from staying true to their uber-aggressive philosophy. Both Smaran and Aniket fell while trying to find the boundary or clear it.
After enduring a tough end to the T20 World Cup and an equally tough start to the IPL, Varun has found some form, picking up at least two wickets in each of his last four games.
Heinrich Klaasen started brightly for SRH, but a one-handed screamer from Rovman Powell, a bona fide contender for the catch of the season, stopped him on 11.
Narine then became the first overseas bowler - and third overall after Yuzvendra Chahal and Bhuvneshwar Kumar - to 200 IPL wickets when he knocked over Salil Arora with a beauty that drifted in and swerved away to hit the top of off stump. In the same over, Narine removed Ishan Kishan for 42 off 29 balls with a regulation offbreak, leaving them on 148 for 7 in 16 overs. SRH added 17 to their tally before they were bowled out for the first time this season.
They were 71 for 1 after the first six overs chasing 166. They needed 18.2 overs to finish the job
KKR scrape home
Finn Allen, who had replaced his New Zealand compatriot Tim Seifert, came out attacking in the chase, smacking Pat Cummins for three fours and two sixes. Cummins, however, had the last laugh, having Allen caught at deep midwicket with a delivery that stopped in the pitch.
Allen's early assault carried KKR to 71 in the powerplay - only twice have they scored more runs during this phase in IPL 2026.
Ajinkya Rahane and Raghuvanshi could afford to sit back and just bunt the ball into the gaps. They forged an 84-run stand for the fourth wicket before SRH's impact player Sakib Hussain bounced Rahane out for 43 off 36 balls.
Left-arm wristspinner Shivang Kumar created another opening by snagging Raghuvanshi with a wrong'un. Rinku Singh, however, got the job done for KKR along with Green.
