Andre Russell took three wickets and scored 49 runs to help the Kolkata Knight Riders beat the Sunrisers Hyderabad by 54 runs at the MCA Stadium, Pune on Sunday. 

Russell came on to bat when KKR’s top-order had failed to convert starts into a big innings. They were 94 for 5. The West Indies hard-hitter and Sam Billings (34 off 29 balls) added 63 runs for the sixth wicket to help the 2014 champions post 177 runs. 

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Kolkata added 58 runs in the death overs. For SRH, Umran Malik, who has been leaking runs in the last few games, came back with figures of 3/33 in four overs. Bhuvneshwar Kumar, T Natarajan and Marco Jansen came back with a wicket each. 

Chasing 178 runs, Sunrisers Hyderabad could manage only 123 for 8. Opener Abhishek Sharma top-scored with a 28-ball 43 and Aiden Markram scoring a 25-ball 32.

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Russell also chipped in with the ball, taking three wickets for 22, while rest of the bowlers — Umesh Yadav (1/19), Tim Southee (2/23), Sunil Narine (1/34) and Varun Chakravarthy (1/25) were also among wickets.

Talking about the game, Shreyas Iyer said that the team did the right thing by playing fearless cricket. 

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“The mindset we came up in this game, it was outstanding. All the boys did the right things, played fearless cricket. It was really important to win the toss. The teams batting first have won a lot of matches. Everything panned out really well,” the KKR skipper said after the toss. 

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Brief Score: Kolkata Knight Riders: 177 for 6 in 20 overs (Andre Russell 49 not out; Umran Malik 3/33).

Sunrisers Hyderabad: 123 for 8 in 20 overs (Abhishek Sharma 43; Andre Russell 3/22).