Hyderabad: Sunrisers Hyderabad registered their third home win of this season as they beat Kings XI Punjab by seven wickets in a low scoring match at Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium, Hyderabad on Friday.
The match was even poised till the 18h over of the SRH’s innings but Thisara Perera changed the equation by scoring 21 runs in the 19th over to take his team to a thrilling victory. Hanuma Vihari also played to score 46 off 39 balls and kept his side in hunt till the last.
Earlier, it was some very good bowling performance from SRH bowlers who did the fine job by restricting the opposition to 123. It was Ishant Sharma and Amit Mishra who picked up two wickets each while Karan Sharma ended up with thy best bowling figures of 2/19.
Chasing a low total on a slow and wicket was never an easy task and SRH started badly as they lost their first wicket in first over and that too with without any runs on the board. Hanuma Vihari came on to the crease and started resurrecting the innings slowly. Vihari forged a brilliant partnership of 48 runs for the second-wicket with Cameroon White and took his team out of the deep trouble. Hanuma Vihari scored 46 runs whereas Cameron White scored 16 runs in 23 balls. Later Perera and Biplab Samantray kept the scoreboard ticking by picking up singles before Perera unleashed himself in the 19th over to score 21 runs. Perera scored 23 runs off 11 balls which included three monstrous sixes which he hit in Azhar Mahmood’s last over.
Hanuma Vihari was adjudged man-of-the-match for his brilliant performance.
Earlier in the match, Kings XI Punjab had a decent start before Adam Gilchrist departed in the 9th over and Paul Valthaty followed him to the dug-out in the very same over. Karan Sharma was wrecker-in-chief who took the wicket of both the batsmen. Later Piyush Chawla and David Hussey added 40 runs for the fourth-wicket stand before Chawla departed for 23 off just 15 balls. Gurkeerat Singh came into bat but he simply ran out of partners as Hussey departed for 22 off 24 balls. KXI-P lost their four wickets in four balls and was down and out on 115/9 in 19th over. Praveen Kumar and Dimitri Mascarenhas added eight runs for the last wicket and took the total to 123 in their quota of 20 overs.