Brook century guides SRH to victory in Kolkata

Harry Brook scored the first century of the 2023 season of the Indian Premier League to help the Sunrisers Hyderabad beat the Kolkata Knight Riders at the Eden Gardens and clinch their second victory of the campaign. The Englishman’s maiden IPL ton propelled SRH to a gargantuan first innings score of 228 for 4, and despite a valiant effort from the hosts in response, KKR succumbed to a 23-run defeat at home.

Brook failed to impress in each of his opening three innings this season but put all the doubters to rest with a phenomenal display of batting in Kolkata. The Englishman got going with a four through the covers against Umesh Yadav off the first ball of the innings and smashed 31 runs off the first 11 deliveries he faced to take SRH to 43 for 0 in just three overs.

Sunil Narine conceded just three runs off the fourth to break SRH’s momentum before Andre Russell struck twice in the fifth over to even the scales, dismissing Mayank Agarwal and Rahul Tripathi to pick up his first two wickets off the competition.

Nitish Rana turned to the spinners to keep the scoring rate in check through the middle. Although Brook failed to find the boundaries against Narine and Chakravarthy, Aiden Markram dominated, smashing Suyash Sharma for three sixes and a four. The skipper also creamed Varun Chakravarthy for a pair of boundaries to get to a 25-ball half-century before being caught in the deep off the next delivery by Andre Russell.

After taking a backseat against the spinners, Brook took centre stage again against the pacers at the death. The opener clubbed five boundaries in a single 23-run over from Lockie Ferguson and found regular boundaries till the end to bring up a stunning 55-ball century. The Englishman was also well accompanied by Abhishek Sharma and Heinrich Klaasen, who combined to torch the KKR bowlers at the death, helping SRH post the highest total of the season so far.

Chasing 229, KKR lost three wickets inside the opening four overs as Bhuvneshwar Kumar got rid of Gurbaz and Marco Jansen struck twice in two balls. Nitish Rana launched a counter-attack for the hosts by taking 28 runs from a single Umran Malik over, but the constant run-rate pressure run-rate and regular wickets dented their progress.

Mayank Markande removed N Jagadeesan and Andre Russell in successive overs while T Natarajan dismissed the KKR skipper for 75. Rinku Singh scored a half-century to give Kolkata some hope, but eventually couldn’t replicate his miraculous heroics from Ahmedabad to hand SRH a straightforward 23-run win.