IPL 2018, SRH vs KXIP: 5 reasons why KXIP lost
It was North vs South India at the IPL as a high flying Kings XI Punjab side locked horns against a well rounded Sunrisers Hyderabad outfit at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium in Hyderabad. Ashwin won the crucial toss and put the home team in to bat.
It was a slow wicket and Punjab made the early inroads by dismissing Williamson, Dhawan and Saha inside six overs. Manish Pandey and Shakib Al-Hasan came together and stitched a fine partnership before the latter threw it away. Yusuf Pathan and Manish Pandey tried their best to push the score beyond 140 but some tight death bowling restricted the home side to 132 for 6 in 20 overs.
High on confidence from their last game where SRH defended a paltry 118, they believed that they could do it again but the task was always going to be tough against a KXIP side whose batting has been simply incredible this season.
Chasing 133, Punjab once again got off to a good start courtesy their in-form openers, Chris Gayle and KL Rahul. They added yet another 50+ stand as Punjab looked set to chase the target with ease. SRH needed a wicket and Williamson turned to his premier spinner Rashid Khan, who castled Rahul with a beauty.
Once Rahul was sent packing, Punjab lost wickets in a cluster and eventually fell short by 13 runs. It was an incredible comeback by SRH, who once again managed to defend a low total.
Let's take a look at 5 reasons why KXIP lost the game.
#1 Poor catching and fielding
They say “catches win matches” and that's exactly what the Kings XI Punjab failed to do. They dropped as many as four catches and the fielding too was below par.
Pandey was the beneficiary on two occasions and he made the most of it by cracking a gritty half-century to take SRH to a respectable score. In the end, the dropped chances came back to haunt the Kings XI as they fell short by 13 runs.