New Delhi: Robin Uthappa rode his luck to register his first half-century of IPL 10 and took Kolkata Knight Riders to 172 for 6 against Sunirsers Hyderabad in Kolkata.
The wicket-keeper batsman scored 68 fluent runs off 39 balls, striking four clean sixes and five boundaries. He was well supported by Manish Pandey (46 off 35 balls).
The story could have different though had umpire Anil Dandekar did not fail to notice the huge outside off Uthappa’s bat when he was on zero. Uthappa grabbed the opportunity with both hands and showcased some breathtaking strokes.
Sent in to bat, KKR continued with their make-shift opening pair of Sunil Narine and Gautam Gambhir, which had given an ideal start in the previous encounter with Kings XI Punjab. This time though both the left- handers had a short stay at the crease. Narine was the first to go for 6 and then Gambhir was cleaned up by an ever improving Rashid Khan for 15.
Manish Pandey joined Uthappa in the middle and gleefully took the job of rebuilding the innings. Uthappa took the onus on himself to up the ante as he hit couple of big sixes over long on - one off Ben Cutting and another one off Bipul Sharma.
When Uthappa was looking ominous, he missed timed one off Cutting and was out for 68. The dismissal affected KKR’s scoring rate. But Pandey soon got out of his shell. He hit Cutting for a flat six over long on and followed it up with well-timed shot past point to collect a boundary.
However, Pandey and Pathan failed to provide the finishing touches to the KKR innings mainly because of Purple Cap holder Bhuvneshwar Kumar, who returned to bowl a superb last couple of over after his initial burst with new ball.
Kumar picked up 3 wickets for 20 runs.