Hyderabad: Sunrisers Hyderabad made it to the play-offs after a stunning five-wicket win over Kolkata Knight Riders at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium on Sunday. Brilliant opening partnership of 89 runs by Shikhar Dhawan and Parthiv Patel ensured this much-needed win for SRH as they edged out Royal Challengers Bangalore for the fourth spot in IPL play-off.
Earlier it was brilliant bowling from the spin twins of Amit Mishra and Karan Sharma who gave away just 35 runs and took couple of wickets between them . Pace attack led by Dale Steyn and Anand Rajan was also up to the task as they picked up three wickets amongst them.
Sunrisers Hyderabad started off well as they added 30 runs in the first five overs. Patel and Dhawan started taking on the bowlers with their brilliant stroke play and boundaries came in with ease. In the first 10 overs they managed to add 77 runs and were looking to finish of this game with a comprehensive win. But there was twist in the tale when Iqbal Abdullah came into play as he got Dhawan leg before wicket.
In his next over, Abdullah struck once again as he got the wicket of Parthiv who departed after scoring 47 runs. With quick fall of the wickets of Cameron White, Hanuma Vihari and Thisara Perera, KKR were looking set to clinch a thrillerbut couple of sensational blows from Darren Sammy tilted the scale in favour of Sunrisers Hyderabad.
Earlier, it was some poor batting from KKR that restricted them to a low scoreas Manvinder Bisla and Gautam Gambhir departed after adding 27 runs for the first wicket. Bisla scored 15 runs whereas Gambhir contributed 10 runs. Jacques Kallis was looking in good touch with the bat and he kept rotating the strikes with Yusuf Pathan added 30 runs for the third wicket before Kallis departed after scoring 24 runs. Thereafter, it was flurry of the mistakes by KKR batsmen which made the road difficult for them.
However, Yusuf Pathan brought them back in the game as he scored 49 runs off just 29 balls. His three fours and three sixes helped KKR to reach a decent total of 130 runs in their 20 overs.
By ISN