Sunrisers Hyderabad managed to restrict Kolkata Knight Riders for 163/5 with Natarajan grabbing two wickets in Indian Premier League match played at the Sheikh Zayed Stadium in Abu Dhabi on Sunday.
With Shubnam Gill giving initial push with a score of 36 for KKR, captain Eoin Morgan and Dinesh Karthik's firing in the death overs pushed the target till 163.
Karthik (29 not out) and Morgan (34 off 23 balls) joined forces at 105 for four and added 58 runs in the last five overs after 150 was looking a tall-order at one stage.
Morgan's innings had three fours and a flicked six over mid-wicket off Basil Thampi while Karthik hit a couple of sixes and equal number of boundaries.
T Natarajan (2/40) was the most successful bowler but it was Vijay Shankar (1/20 in 4 overs) who was the most economical.
Rahul Tripathi (23 off 15 balls) gave the first charge in the Powerplay as he hit Natarajan for a straight six and a pulled boundary while Shubman Gill (36 off 37 balls) struggled to time the ball, save an over from Thampi when he got three successive fours.
Tripathi couldn't maintain the momentum as an ugly cross-batted hoick off Natarajan only ended in the bails flying off.
Gill however after those flurry of fours found it difficult to up the ante.
Gill's dismissal was followed by Rana's who mis-timed a shot off Vijay Shankar and was again caught by Garg, who ran forward to take a well-judged catch.
Andre Russell's (9 off 11 balls) season just got from bad to worse as his shot off Natarajan's slower one landed in the hands of Shankar at deep mid-wicket boundary.
From a stable 87 for 1 in the 12th over, KKR had slumped to 105 for 4 at the end of the 15th over.
Ex-captain Dinesh Karthik's carefree approach was well complemented by skipper Eoin Morgan's grace helped KKR, Basil Thampi took the captain's wicket in final over.
Earlier, SRH captain David Warner won the toss and elected to field.
With both the teams meeting after back-to-back defeats, this mid-table battle will give either side much needed two points to qualify for play-offs.
Both the teams made two changes to their playing 11. KKR have brought in bowlers Lockie Ferguson and Kuldeep Yadav instead of P Krishna and Chris Green. And for SRH, Abdul Samad and Basil Thampi get on the field and off go Khalel Ahmed and Shahbaz Nadeem.
The teams:
Sunrisers Hyderabad: D Warner(C), J Bairstow (wk), M Pandey, K Williamson, P Garg, A Samad, V Shankar, R Khan, S Sharma, B Thampi, T Natarajan
Kolkara Knight Riders: R Tripathi, S Gill, N Rana, D Karthik (wk), E Morgan(C), A Russell, P Cummins, L Ferguson, K Yadav, S Mavi, V Chakravarthy
(With PTI inputs)