Hyderabad: On Friday, Shikhar
Dhawan hit an unbeaten 47 as Sunrisers Hyderabad beat Gujarat Lions by five
wickets in their Indian Premier League clash at Rajiv Gandhi International
Stadium in Hyderabad.
With this
victory, Hyderabad rose to the fourth spot from their fifth place while Gujarat
managed to retain their second spot in the points table.
Chasing a
127-run victory target, Dhawan held the Hyderabad innings together and along
with Naman Ojha took the hosts over the finish line. Dhawan’s patient knock
came off 40 balls and was studded with six hits to the fence as the left-handed
opener carried his bat through the innings to chase down the target with an
over to spare.
Dinesh
Karthik took a good catch diving to his left for the scalp of Moises Henriques
off Dwayne Bravo and that brought Yuvraj Singh to the crease. Playing his first
match in this season, Yuvraj looked miserably out of touch and the two-paced
wicket added to his misery. Trying to break the shackles with a big hit, Yuvraj
was caught at the cover fence by Pradeep Sangwan off Kulkarni.
Earlier,
the five-pronged pace attack worked wonders for Sunrisers Hyderabad as the
David Warner-led side restricted debutants Gujarat Lions to 126 runs off six
wickets.
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. 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. Finch
was dropped by Warner off Henriques when he was on 31 and it was his score that
gave Gujarat bowlers some runs to bowl with.
Warner won
the toss in helpful conditions and as has been the trend this season, asked
Gujarat to bat first.
Kane
Williamson then took a brilliant one-handed catch at gully to dismiss Dinesh
Karthik off Mustafizur. Karthik opened the face of his bat a bit to a slower
delivery that was bowled wide of the crease by the Bangladesh pacer, as
Williamson dived to his left and got his fingers just underneath the ball. The
dismissal was so close that it needed the third umpire to adjudge Karthik out
for a duck.
Dwayne
Bravo added 45 runs with Finch for the fifth wicket but the West Indian’s vigil
at the crease ended when substitute Vijay Shankar took a great running catch at
deep mid-wicket as Gujarat lost half of their side with just 79 runs on the
board in 14.1 overs.
At 19
overs, Sunrisers Hyderabad clinched victory when they scored 129 runs off five
wickets.
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