HYDERABAD: Sunrisers Hyderabad’s Abhishek Sharma carried on with his mind-blowing form by scoring a 28-ball 66 (5×4, 6×6) to help them overcome Punjab Kings by four wickets and improve their chances of finishing in the top two places.
In this match played at the Rajiv Gandhi International Cricket Stadium, SRH won taking their points tally to 17 and which also saw them climb up to second position on Sunday. Subsequently, KKR and RR match got cancelled later in that day due to heavy downpour and then SRH secured second spot in final points table over Rajasthan Royals only through a superior net run rate.
Sunrisers achieved success after Punjab Kings put up a total of 214/5 in the first innings with Prabhsimran Singh doing most of the damage with a knock of 71 (45b, 7×4, 4×6). For instance, he added 72 runs for the second wicket along with Rahul Tripathi who scored 33 off just 18 balls; as well as another partnership with Nitish Kumar for the third wicket that resulted in a total of 57 runs but came from only Nitish Kumar making an addition score of his own when he made37 off just25 balls. The host team won by five wickets but not before losing opener Travis Head from Arshdeep Singh’s very opening delivery.
Just thirty balls were faced by Abhishek Sharma and Rahul Tripathi who together put on seventy-two runs. And even though Tripathi perished in Arshdeep’s hands during over six; hosts had reached eighty-four for two within powerplay. As a result, despite losing two partners one after another, Abhishek continued his aggressive approach. He hit Harshal Patel twice consecutively at the beginning of his half-century on twenty-one deliveries and he followed it up with two sixes in a row off Harpreet Brar which made Hyderabad to score 129/2 at the halfway mark. However, he perished on first ball of Shashank Singh’s next over.
Hyderabad required only slightly above six runs per over after both Nitish and Heinrich Klaasen hit sixes from Brar and Rahul Chahar in the 13th.
Nitish was dismissed for 47 from 37 balls, driving his side towards a win. Then Klassen (42 off 26b) did not managed to reach the target thus being clean bowled by Harpreet Brar with eight more runs needed for victory.With this, Abdul Samad punched Atharva straight down the ground so as to finish off the match.
Earlier on, Punjab decided to field first and Atharva Taide (46 off 27b) and Prabhsimran opened with a 97-run partnership in nine overs including sixty-one runs coming from their initial six overs.
But Taide was eventually removed by Natarajan during tenth over, though he took only thirty-four deliveries before reaching his fifty.
Natarajan went for twenty runs as Rilee Rossouw and Prabhsimran completed the twelfth over but was successful in dismissing Prabhsimran who had partnered him for fifty-four more runs after that. A couple of boundaries followed by Rossouw against Nitish saw him going past fifty but then Shashank Singh pointlessly sent him back while attempting an unsuccessful second run.
After that Cummins also got out Rilee Rossouw (49); meanwhile Natarajan dismissed Ashutosh Sharma in subsequent one.
