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Pace spearhead Trent Boult led the way with three wickets after David Warner's brisk half-century laid the foundation as Sunrisers Hyderabad recorded a 20-run win over Kings XI Punjab in the Indian Premier League in Mohali, on Monday.
- Scorecard
Asked to bat, opener Warner top-scored with a 41-ball 58 to lift Sunrisers to 150 for six. The bowlers produced a disciplined effort to restrict Punjab to 130 for nine in 20 overs, paving the way for Hyderabad's third win of IPL 8.
Boult returned impressive figures of three for 19 in his four-over spell while Bhuvneshwar Kumar chipped in with two wickets. Wriddhiman Saha top-scored with a 33-ball 42 and briefly gave Punjab some hopes at the end but his dismissal to Boult at the end sealed his team's hopes.
Kings XI Punjab, playing without the veteran Virender Sehwag, were jolted by the early loss of Manan Vohra and Shaun Marsh, both batsmen playing on against Boult and Kumar respectively to leave the visitors reeling at 13 for two in the fourth over.
Murali Vijay, after spending some time in the middle for his 12 runs, made his way back to the pavilion following a terrible mix-up with David Miller (15) while going for what seemed an unnecessary second run.
Around the halfway mark, bottom-placed Punjab were struggling at 61 for four, requiring 90 runs from 60 balls to climb up the ladder.
The hosts were dealt another body blow when leg-spinner Karn Sharma bagged the wicket of Miller who skied one to Boult at long-off. With the required run rate shooting up, Miller got a leading edge while trying to hit Sharma down the ground.
Captain George Bailey got out as his mishit found Sharma at mid-off after the batsman made 22 off 16 balls with the help of three boundaries.
At the other end, Saha was riding his luck as he got two lives. While Ravi Bopara could not latch on to a difficult one in the 15th over, Boult failed to judge one that went very high in the next over.
Saha and Axar Patel managed a few big hits to bring the equation down to 35 from the last three overs. However, Boult bowled Patel at the start of 18th over before getting the big wicket of Saha to dash Punjab's hopes of pulling off a win in their first home game of the season.
Opener David Warner hit a quickfire half-century but Sunrisers Hyderabad failed to sustain the momentum and finished on a modest 150 for six in their 20 overs.
Captain Warner top-scored with a 41-ball 58 before Ashish Reddy smashed 22 off eight balls towards the end with the help of two sixes in the last over to score some quick runs at the end.
Sent into bat, Hyderabad were off to a poor start with Shikhar Dhawan falling to pace spearhead Mitchell Johnson with just 10 runs on the board after Sandeep Sharma had started the innings with a maiden over.
Kings XI Punjab skipper George Bailey opted to bowl first as the pitch had a good amount of grass on it, and his bowlers responded by producing a disciplined show with the new ball.
Punjab dropped opener Virender Sehwag after a run of poor scores and included Manan Vohra in his place, while Glenn Maxwell once again missed out.
Young left-arm spinner Axar Patel was the best bowler for Punjab, returning impressive figures of two for 25, while Johnson picked up two wickets but went for 39 runs in his four-over spell.
Apart from Warner, Moises Henriques (30) and Naman Ojha (28) were the other contributors for the visiting side, which struggled to get going after a quickfire start.
Warner found the fence 10 times and cleared it once during his stay in the middle.
Part-time off-spinner Murali Vijay bowled a tidy three-over spell, conceding just 16 runs as Hyderabad failed to lift the tempo in the middle overs.
Pacer Anureet Singh, too, was economical as he gave away 27 runs in his full spell, including five runs in the innings' penultimate over.