In today’s second match of the Indian Premier league 2020 (IPL 2020), Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) defeated Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) at Sharjah cricket ground.
SRH first produced a brilliant bowling effort to restrict a batting-heavy RCB to a modest 120 for seven and then chased down the target in 14.1 overs to zoom to fourth spot in the standings from seventh.
SRH now have 12 points from 13 games and need to win their last league game against table-toppers Mumbai Indians to stay in the hunt.
RCB, who needed a win to seal their Play-offs berth, slumped to their third consecutive defeat in the tournament but stayed at second place in the table with 14 points from 13 games.
RCB removed SRH skipper David Warner (8) early but they needed more wickets upfront to be in the contest.
After Warner's dismissal, Wriddhiman Saha and Manish Pandey (26 off 19) shared 50 runs for the second wicket in quick time to take control of the chase.
But some brilliant spin bowling from Yuzvendra Chahal in the middle overs and over cautious batting from SRH gave RCB outside hope.
Chahal dismissed Pandey and Saha and then Kane Williamson (8) was sent back by Isuru Udana to give RCB a ray of hope even though the contest was tilted very much in favour of SRH.
Jason Holder played a 10-ball 26-run cameo towards the end to take SRH home comfortably.
Earlier, SRH strangled RCB by picking up wickets at regular intervals after opting to bowl.
Young Devdutt Padikkal (5) and skipper Virat Kohli (7) departed in quick succession, falling to Sandeep Sharma (2/20). Sandeep has now dismissed Kohli for a record seven times in IPL.
AB de Villiers made a run-a-ball 24 before perishing and then Josh Philippe (32) again got a start but failed to capitalise. He was caught by Manish Pandey off Rashid Khan (1/24) in the next over as RCB slumped to 76 for four in 11.4 overs.
After the early blows, Washington Sundar (21) and Gurkeerat Singh (15 not out) tried to resurrect the innings with a 30-run fifth-wicket stand but they never got the momentum.
Jason Holder too shone bright with the ball with figures of 2 for 27 from his four overs.
RCB playing 11 Josh Philippe, Devdutt Padikkal, Virat Kohli (c), AB de Villiers (wk), Gurkeerat Singh Mann, Washington Sundar, Chris Morris, Isuru Udana, Mohammed Siraj, Navdeep Saini, Yuzvendra Chahal
SRH playing 11 David Warner (c), Wriddhiman Saha (wk), Manish Pandey, Kane Williamson, Abdul Samad, Jason Holder, Abhishek Sharma, Rashid Khan, Shahbaz Nadeem, Sandeep Sharma, T Natarajan
IPL live score: RCB vs SRH full scorecard  "IPL 2020, RCB vs SRH Highlights: SRH wins to keep play-off hopes alive")
