Venkatesh Iyer, vice captain of Kolkata Knight Riders, smashed a fiery half-century as the defending champions thrashed Sunrisers Hyderabad by 80 runs in match number 15 of IPL 2025 at Eden Gardens. Failing to get a big knock in the first three matches, Venkatesh finally looked in good touch as he scored 60 runs off just 29 balls as KKR posted 200 runs for the loss of six wickets.
Coming to bat first after losing the toss, KKR didn’t have a great start as they lost both their openers (Quinton de Kock and Sunil Narine) at the score of 16 runs in 2.3 overs. After that, skipper Ajinkya Rahane and Angkrish Raghuvanshi did some recovery and put up a partnership of 81 runs for the third wicket. Rahane got out after scoring 38(27) runs hitting one four and four sixes, while Raghuvanshi scored 50 runs off 35 balls with five fours and two sixes.
Venkatesh Iyer, Rinku Singh guide KKR to 200 runs
After Ajinkya Rahane and Angkrish Raghuvanshi got out, Venkatesh Iyer and Rinku Singh took charge of the innings as the duo put up a partnership of 91 runs for the fifth wicket. Iyer got out in the last over smashing 60(29) runs hitting seven fours and three sixes while Rinku remained unbeaten on 32*(17) runs hitting four fours and a six. For SRH, Kamindu Mendis, Harshal Patel, Zeeshan Ansari, Pat Cummins and Mohammed Shami scalped a wicket each.
Chasing the winning target, SRH couldn’t even come close to the target as they were bowled out for just 120 runs in 16.4 overs. Debutant Kamindu Mendis scored 27(18) runs while Heinrich Klaasen top scored with 33 runs off 21 balls. Apart from that, none of the SRH batters could stay at the crease for long. For KKR, Varun Chakravarthy shone with the figures of 3/22 while Vaibhav Arora also scalped three conceding 29 runs in his four overs. Apart from that, Andre Russell took two while Harshit Rana and Sunil Narine scalped a wicket each.
