Kane Williamson’s Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) beat Royal Challengers Hyderabad (RCB) by 5 runs. With this loss, RCB are potentially knocked out of IPL.
In the 39th match of the VIVO Indian Premier League (IPL) 2018, Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) defeated Royal Challengers Bangalore by 5 runs in a last-ball thriller and retained their top position on the VIVO IPL points table. Sunrisers Hyderabad had a reputation of defending low totals and did it again against RCB.
Parthiv Patel and Manan Vohra gave a fine start as looked to attack right from the start, shedding the defensive approach behind. Shakib trapped Parthiv for LBW, this made RCB captain Virat Kohli come to the crease. Kohli started his inning with the signature cover drive and soon disrupted Shakib’s bowling figures.
A twist came in RCB’s all-well tale when Shakib Al Hasan got the prized wicket of RCB captain Virat Kohli, Yusuf Pathan deserved equal credit for that as he took a one-handed catch stretching his right arm. Spinners were deployed from both ends to seize the opportunity and it went that way as De Villiers soon followed Kohli to pavilion after Rashid’s googly hit the stumps.
Hyderabad bowlers kept a tight vigil on the run flow. Mandeep Singh and Colin de Grandhomme were virtually the last hope for RCB and they needed to rescue their team from this situation. To snatch a victory from the mighty ‘orange army’ looked a herculean task now. Both the batsmen to elude the bowlers from taking any wicket till the last over. With 12 runs needed off the last over, RCB had to pull something extraordinary and Hyderabad needed another master defence.
Bhuvneshwar Kumar did not let the batsmen cross the magic number in the last over. Earlier, Alex Hales and Shikhar Dhawan opened for Sunrisers Hyderabad. Deviating from the usual, RCB deployed Moeen Ali with the ball in the first over and reaped the benefit as the openers observed cautious approach.
Tim Southee proved instrumental in getting the first breakthrough for RCB just as Hales was removed in the third over. SRH captain Kane Williamson made his intention clear from the first ball. He went on to score a crucial half-century. RCB managed to bundle out SRH for 146.
Source: Business Standard
