Hyderabad. Thanks to the brilliant innings of Angkrish Raghuvanshi (59) and captain Ajinkya Rahane (43), Kolkata Knight Riders kept their play-off hopes alive by defeating Sunrisers Hyderabad by seven wickets with 10 balls to spare in the 45th match of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2026 on Sunday, registering their third win in the tournament. This is the fourth defeat of Sunrisers Hyderabad.
Rinku Singh gave his team victory by seven wickets by hitting two consecutive fours on the first and second balls of the 19th over. With this win, KKR has reached seven points by gaining two important points and its play-off hopes are alive. In this match, the ball was coming very slowly in the first innings and the spinners were also getting help.
However, the aggressive start KKR made made it clear that they did not need to take much risk. Raghuvanshi regained her rhythm by scoring a half-century. The pitch was a bit slow in the second innings too but KKR batsmen batted with great discretion. For Kolkata Knight Riders, who were chasing the target of 166 runs, the pair of Finn Allen and Ajinkya Rahane added 49 runs in the first four overs for the first wicket. Pat Cummins gave the first success to Sunrisers Hyderabad by dismissing Finn Allen on the last ball of the fourth over.
Finn Allen scored 29 runs in 13 balls, hitting three fours and two sixes. In the 15th over, Saqib Hussain dismissed Ajinkya Rahane and sent him to the pavilion. Ajinkya Rahane scored 43 runs in 36 balls with the help of four fours and one six. In the 17th over, Shivang Kumar, who was taking his team towards victory, made Angkrish Raghuvanshi his victim.
Angkrish Raghuvanshi played an inning of 59 runs in 47 balls, hitting five fours and two sixes. Kolkata Knight Riders won the match by seven wickets after scoring 169 runs for three wickets in 18.2 overs. Rinku Singh scored unbeaten 22 runs in 11 balls, hitting two fours and a six. Earlier today, Kolkata Knight Riders bowlers bowled out Sunrisers Hyderabad for 165 runs in 19 overs.
Sunrisers Hyderabad won the toss and decided to bat first. After the wicket of Abhishek Sharma (15) fell in the fourth over, the pair of Travis Head and Ishan Kishan took over the Hyderabad innings. There was a partnership of 61 runs between the two batsmen for the second wicket. Varun Chakraborty broke this partnership by dismissing Travis Head in the ninth over. Travis Head played an inning of 61 runs in 28 balls, hitting nine fours and three sixes.
After this, Sunrisers Hyderabad batsmen could not hold on against the bowling attack of Kolkata Knight Riders and kept losing wickets at intervals. Ishan Kishan scored (42) runs in 29 balls, hitting four fours and two sixes. Captain Pat Cummins was out after scoring 10 runs. Six batsmen of Sunrisers could not even reach double figures.
Sunrisers, which had once scored 105 runs for two wickets in nine overs, lost eight wickets after adding just 60 runs. On the last ball of the 19th over, Karthik Tyagi dismissed Harshal Patel (six) and ended Sunrisers Hyderabad’s innings at the score of 165 runs. Varun Chakraborty took three wickets for Kolkata Knight Riders. Sunil Narayan and Karthik Tyagi got two wickets each. Anukul Roy, Vaibhav Arora, Cameron Green dismissed one batsman each.
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