Shakib Al Hasan made a comeback to the Indian Premier League (IPL) on Sunday with the first match of Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) in the season against Sunresiers Hyderabad. KKR won the game by 10 runs, but Shakib’s performance was lean in the field.
The left-handed allrounder batted for five balls to score only three runs. But he started well with the ball taking a wicket off the first ball in the season removing Wriddhiman Saha. Shakib, however, failed to continue on the good run as he ended up his bowling quota conceding 34 runs in four overs.
Shakib missed the last season of IPL due to the two-year-long ban, with one year suspended, which was imposed on him by the ICC for failing to corrupt approaches made to him.
On Sunday’s game, SRH won the toss and sent KKR to bat first. Nitish Rana and Shubman Gill added 53 runs before Gill was removed by Rashid Khan at 15 off the last ball of the seventh over.
In the second wicket stand, Rana and Rahul Tripathi added 93 runs on the board. The first three youngers laid a good foundation for KKR.
Riding on Rana’s 80, Tripathi’s 53 and Dinesh Karthik’s 9-ball 22, KKR posted a challenging total of 187 for six in 20 overs.
For SRH, two Afghan spinners— Rashid Khan and Mohammad Nabi— bagged two wickets each while Bhuvneshwar Kumar and T Natarajan took one wicket each.
In reply, Manish Pandey hi an unbeaten 61 off 44 balls with two fours and three sixes while Jonny Bairstow also smashed a fifty, 55, off 40 deliveries, but SRH failed to sail through.
They needed to score 22 runs in the last over bowled by Andre Russell. Pandey and Abdul Salam only managed 11 runs despite a last-ball six by Pandey.
For KKR, pace-bowler Prasidh Krishna took two wickets conceding 35 runs while Shakib, Russell and Pat Cummins took one wicket each.
