It eventually required the steady hands of Gautam Gambhir to steer Kolkata Knight Riders to victory over Sunrisers Hyderabad and into Qualifier 2 of the IPL.
A target of 48 in six overs ought to have been a doodle, but KKR made hard work of it, slipping to 12 for three before Gambhir steadied the ship.
The captain scored a 19-ball 32 as KKR won with four balls to spare at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium here in the early hours of Thursday.
But Nathan Coulter-Nile, who played a lead role with the ball in the evening, denied there had been any anxiety in the ranks as Chris Lynn, Yusuf Pathan and Robin Uthappa fell early in the chase.
“It wasn’t a big target. On that wicket you’ll never really know. We thought, 10 wickets in hand, six overs. There’s no point trying to work yourself in,” he said.
“Might as well go hard. If the top-six batsmen all go hard and one of them comes off, then you win the game. So, I thought, we batted well. Obviously, the run out (of Yusuf Pathan) was a bit silly. But everything else was fine,” added Coulter-Nile.
He was returning from a two-week absence forced by concussion, after being struck on the helmet by a Dan Christian delivery.
“I really didn’t know what to expect,” he said of the aftermath. “The next day I was fine. But then two days later, I had bad headaches. Couldn’t get out of bed. We flew to Bengaluru and we were here for three-four days and I didn’t get out of bed even once.
“It was something I hadn’t experienced, hadn’t expected. So I went to a few doctors. I was told to wait it out and rest it out. I was still pretty bad a couple of days ago. Woke up this morning (Wednesday) and I was fine. So thought might as well give it a crack.”
The Australian took three for 20 and Umesh Yadav two for 21 as KKR limited SRH to 128 in 20 overs. The pitch had not been conducive to shot-making, Coulter-Nile admitted.
“It was a difficult wicket, definitely. The cross-seamers were holding up and slower balls were getting a little bit of grip. Umesh and Boulty told me before I even started bowling that cross-seamers into the wicket were really hard to hit.
“But once the rain came in, it got a lot easier to bat. Once the ball was wet, the ball actually skidded through. We thought maybe 140 [was par]. So 10 runs makes a big difference.”
