The Sunrisers Hyderabad openers, Travis Head and Abishek Sharma (34*), have punished the Kolkata Knight Riders in the first six overs after being asked to bat first in their second Tata IPL match at Eden Gardens, racing to 84-1 after an exhibition of power-hitting in the opening six overs.
The left-handed pair clubbed a total of nine fours and six sixes before Head was caught by Cameroon Green at mid on attempting another big hit, as Kartik Tyagi broke the partnership.
After a decent first over of the innings which went for a modest six thanks to a four off the final ball, Australian Head hit new-ball bowler Vaibhav Arora (2-0-27-0) for back-to-back sixes off the third and fourth balls of his second, before cutting him through the covers for four, as Arora's second over went for an extravagant 21.
Zimbabwean Blessing Muzarabani was not spared the early power-hitting, as he earned the unwanted record of conceding the match's first six - Abishek Sharma pulling him for a big maximum over backward square leg region.
Captain Ishan Kishan has joined Sharma in the middle after the fall of the first wicket.
Match report to follow
KOLKATA KNIGHT RIDERS: Ajinkya Rahane (capt), Cameron Green, Angkrish Raghuvanshi (wk), Rinku Singh, Ramandeep Singh, Anakul Roy, Sunil Narine, Varun Chakaravarthy, Vaibhav Arora, Kartik Tyagi, Blessing Muzarabani.
SUNRISERS HYDERABAD: Abishek Sharma, Travis Head, Ishan Kishan (capt; wk), Heinrich Klaasen, Aniket Verma, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Salil Arora, Harsh Dubey, Shivang Kumar, Jaydev Unadkat, David Payne.