After surviving some anxious moments, Sunrisers Hyderabad was home and dry against Gujarat Lions, notching up its fifth victory of the Vivo IPL, at the Rajiv Gandhi worldwide stadium here on Friday night.
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1 – Bhuvneshwar Kumar became the first player to pick up the two man-of-the-match awards this IPL.
Today is the encounter between the Sunrisers Hyderabad, a team which stands at the fifth place on the IPL points table and the Gujarat Lions, who are comfortably sitting at the second spot.
The Suresh-Raina led Lions will be keen to get back to their winning ways as they take on Sunrisers Hyderabad at Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium on Friday.
Hyderabad restricted the Lions to 126 for six with Shikhar Dhawan striking an unbeaten 47 to steer his side to victory. Finch in the end ran out of partners in his knock that came off 42 balls with the help of a six and three fours.
Brendon McCullum struggles to seven off 19 balls in bug-swatting conditions in Hyderabad. Astonishingly, he missed the catch, somehow trapping the ball between his hand and chest, but the ball bounced out as he fell.
Sunrisers Hyderabad: David Warner (C), Shikhar Dhawan, Kane Williamson, Yuvraj Singh, Moises Henriques, Naman Ojha, Deepak Hooda, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Brainder Sran, Ashish Nehra and Mustafizur Rahman.
However, an outstanding catch in the deep by substitute fielder Vijay Shankar off the bowling of Barinder Sran (1-21) saw Bravo (18) back in the hutch.
The total always looked under par and so it proved as Dhawan guided his side home with an over to spare.
Meanwhile, Dhawan was getting stronger after keeping quiet initially.
The Lions began with one of the slowest starts ever in the IPL and then slumped to 25 for 3 inside powerplay overs.
Dwayne Bravo and Ravindra Jadeja each contributed 18, but Sunrisers made an early dent in their 127-run target. It was Aaron Finch’s unbeaten 51 that gave Gujarat some respectability as none of the other batsmen showed neither application nor any patience to get their eye in and play according to the situation.
Dwayne Bravo also bowled well for his 2 for 14 from three overs. But it was Dhawan the front runner for SRH until end of the innings finishing the chase with two consecutive boundaries.
Things went from bad to worse the Gujarat Lions as Kane Williamson took a stunner at point to dismiss Dinesh Karthik (0).
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After surviving a dropped catch earlier in his innings, the former New Zealand captain eventually toe-ended a catch to long-off from Australian all-rounder Moises Henriques.
