Kolkata: Kolkata Knight Riders zoomed to the top of the Indian Premier League (IPL) table riding on Robin Uthappa's gritty half-century and disciplined bowling performance to beat Sunrisers Hyderabad by 17 runs at the Eden Gardens here on Saturday.
After a shaky start being put in to bat by visiting captain David Warner, Uthappa stemmed the rot with a brilliant 68 (39b, 5x4, 4x6) to help KKR post 172/6.
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Sunrisers, in their run chase, lost wickets at regular intervals with David Warner (26, 30b, 4x4) and Yuvraj Singh (26, 16b, 2x4, 2x6) top-scoring for the visitors who finished at 155/6 in 20 overs.
The defending champions made a steady start with Warner and Shikhar Dhawan (23, 22b, 4x4) stitching together a 46-run stand off 40 deliveries.
But when the spinners came on, the openers departed in quick succession. First, Dhawan holed out at long on to Yusuf Pathan who conceded just just two runs in his first over.
Soon, Warner -- not a great player of spin -- fell to the guile of chinaman Kuldeep Yadav.
The southpaw could not read him from the first ball and finally picked out Chris Woakes at long off for an easy catch less than one month after falling to the same bowler while playing for Australia against India in the fourth Test at Dharamsala.
Moises Henriques (13, 10b, 2x4) followed suit in the next over, playing an uppish drive off Woakes which the England bowler latched onto in his follow through.
Deepak Hooda (13, 7b, 1x4, 1x6) failed to shine also, missing the line off Narine's delivery for Uthappa to effect an easy stumping.
Just when Yuvraj looked set for a match-winning knock smacking Umesh Yadav for a six and four off consecutive balls, Woakes got the back of the southpaw with a slower cutter that substitute Rishi Dhawan pouched at long on.
Earlier, Robin Uthappa rescued KRR from their initial hiccups with a composed 68 that helped his side post 172/6.
Put in to bat by visiting skipper David Warner, KKR lost opener Sunil Narine (6; 9b, 1x4) and skipper Gautam Gambhir (15; 16b, 2x4) early to be 40/2.
Coming in at No.3, Uthappa used all his experience to engineer a crafty 68 (39b, 5x4, 4x6). Manish Pandey was guilty of a slow start -- scoring only 13 in his first 18 balls -- to finally score a 35-ball 46 (3x4, 2x6). The pair stitched together a 77-run third wicket partnership.
For the visitors, Bhuvneshwar Kumar returned figures of (3/20) at an economy rate of just five.
Narine failed to repeat his heroics as a fiery Bhuvneshwar uprooted his off-stump with an in-swinging yorker to which the leg-spinner had no answer.
In the previous over, Narine had slapped Ashish Nehra down the wicket.
Bhuvneshwar looked dangerous in his first spell of two overs (2-0-7-1) getting the ball to swing away from the right-hander.
Uthappa almost fell pray in his first delivery, following an away moving delivery and all but edging behind to wicketkeeper Naman Ojha.
Just when it looked like Gambhir was about to continue from where he had left against Kings XI Punjab, Afghanistan leg-spinner Rashid Khan (1/29) continued his purple patch with the KKR captain trying to cut a straight one that skidded off the surface and clattered into his stumps.
After the Powerplay, KKR were in a spot of bother at 40/2 with Pandey joining Uthappa in the middle.
Uthappa upped the ante after the break, hitting Moises Henriques and Vipul Sharma -- both being inducted in the first XI in place of Mustafizur Rahman and Vijay Shankar -- for two and a six respectively.
The right-hander from Karnataka brought up his half-century, sweeping Rashid to deep midwicket where Shikhar Dhawan misjudged a difficult catch attempt. Together with Pandey, the duo who play their domestic cricket together, tore apart Sunrisers.
Uthappa, in the process, became the third batsman after Gambhir and Yusuf Pathan to score 1,500 runs for KKR.
Cutting (1/41) finally got Uthappa out -- his legcutter forcing the 2007 T20 World Cup winning-player to mistime his pull with Rashid running from deep midwicket to long on to take the catch.
Bhuvneshwar halted Pandey from scoring a fifty. Pathan remained unbeaten on 21 off 15 with Suryakumar Yadav and Colin Grandhomme falling to Nehra and Bhuvneshwar respectively.