Sunrisers almost eclipsed: SRH survive late assault, prevail over Punjab Kings by 2 runs in another thriller

Deepankar Sharda

Mohali, April 9

It was a close call but Sunrisers Hyderabad pulled off a two-run win over Punjab Kings at the Mullanpur stadium.

240 Runs scored after the fall of the fourth wicket across both innings, the second-most in an IPL match

With 29 runs to defend in the last over, SRH almost handed over the match to the hosts as their fielders dropped three catches and Jaydev Unadkat conceded 27 runs in a nine-ball over that included three wides.

Chasing a 183-run target, Shashank Singh (46 off 25 balls) and Ashutosh Sharma (33 off 15 balls) nearly got their team over the line with an unbeaten 66-run partnership. But with the top-order failing to click, the task proved too big for the duo. Sam Curran (29) and Sikandar Raza (28) provided some stability in the middle overs.

Earlier, everything was going as planned for the PBKS bowlers until young Nitish Kumar Reddy’s brilliantly-paced innings took the game away from the hosts. Despite being three down in the powerplay, Reddy showed tremendous character to play a vital knock of 64 off 37 balls and guide his side to 182/9. The highlight of Reddy’s knock came late in the innings as he smashed 22 runs off a Harpreet Brar over.

Left-arm seamer Arshdeep Singh (4/29) was the standout bowler for PBKS.

The match got underway on an eventful note as Travis Head (21 off 15 balls) would have been out on the first ball but Punjab did not ask for the DRS and replays showed a clear edge.

Despite getting a lifeline, Head failed to capitalise the chance. It was local boy Arshdeep who lured Head to go over long-on but the miscued shot went high and skipper Shikhar Dhawan ran back from mid-off to take a breath-taking catch. Just two balls later, Aiden Markram walked back to the dugout for a duck after Arshdeep got an edge that was collected by wicketkeeper Jitesh Sharma.

Abhishek Sharma, another local boy and big-hitting opener, was expected to do some wonders. He hit Sam Curran for a six and a four but fell on the next ball.

The powerplay yielded only 40 runs as SRH batters played 23 dot balls.

Brief scores: SRH: 182/9 in 20 overs (Reddy 64; Arshdeep 4/29, Harshal 2/30, Curran 2/41); PBKS: 180/6 in 20 overs (Shashank 46*; Bhuvneshwar 2/32).