A late charge by skipper Darren Sammy allowed Sunrisers Hyderabad to overcome initial hiccups and post a challenging 160/7 against Kolkata Knight Riders in their Indian Premier League encounter at the Eden Gardens here Saturday.
Sammy slammed 29 off 19 balls to follow up on Shikhar Dhawan's 31-ball 29 for the visitors, who now need to restrict their opponents to a miserly 23 to stay afloat in the tourney.
The Knights, on the other hand, need to wrap up the game in 15.2 overs to finish second in the league stage.
Put in to bat, SRH had a disastrous start losing the dangerous David Warner (4) in the very first over.
Dhawan and Naman Ojha looked uncomfortable against Morne Morkel who generated some pace, but as many as 14 extras including six wides allowed the visitors to reach a decent score of 49/1 at the end of powerplay.
Gaining in confidence, Ojha (26; 23b 5x4 1x6) hit Umesh Yadav for three fours of his very first over to up the ante, but perished in the eighth over when he top edged Ryan ten Doeschate who took a smart running catch.
The Sunrisers received a massive jolt when the solid looking Dhawan (29; 31b 5x4) was caught short of his crease courtesy a brilliant piece of fielding by Manish Pandey.
The Sunrisers' innings got some momentum when Venugopal Rao hit three fours of one Morkel over, while skipper Darren Sammy - dropped by Yusuf Pathan - tore into Shakib al Hassan, hitting two sixes and a four to take the score past 120 in the 14th over.
The joy though was shortlived as Rao (27; 26b 4x4) departed soon after.
Playing his first game of the season, Anirudha Srikanth's stay at the wicket was short. He scored 3 off 5 balls before being stumped off the bowling of Shakib.
Sammy and Jason Holder hit some lusty blows in the end to take the score past 150 but the duo departed in successive balls. Holder (16; 12b 2x4 1x6) was run out Sammy (29; 19b 1x4 3x6) was caught in the deep of Vinay Kumar in the last over.
