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A fine 41-ball 60 from Darren Sammy rescued Sunrisers Hyderabad from a batting disaster as they scored a competitive 144 for nine in their Pepsi IPL match against Rajasthan Royals here today.
The Sunrisers were looking down the barrel as they were reduced to 29 for six in the seventh over after electing to bat with James Faulkner (5/20) and Ajit Chandila (2/13) ripping through the visiting top-order before West Indian captain Sammy resurrected their innings.
Sammy, who struck eight fours and a six in his knock, stitched 58 runs with lower-order batsman Amit Mishra (21) for the seventh wicket to help Sunrisers recover from the batting collapse and post a respectable total at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium.
Dale Steyn contributed a quickfire eight-ball 18 towards the end after Sammy was the ninth and last Sunrisers batsman out in the 19th over.
Sunrisers's decision to bat first seemed to have backfired after Chandila got rid of Akshath Reddy in the fifth ball of the innings. Faulkner struck twice to remove Kumar Sangakkara (4) and Shikhar Dhawan (0) in his first over and then induced a top edge from Karun sharma (6) to reduce the Sunrisers to 15 for four in the fourth over.
The woes for the visitors increased when Thisara Perera (4) holed out to long on off Chandila and Hanuma Vihari (4) was caught behind by Dishant Yagnik off Kevon Cooper as wickets kept on falling like nine pins. By the seventh over, the Sunrisers had lost six wickets for just 29 runs.
With the bowlers tightening the screw and some good catches coming up from the Royals fielders, it looked like the Sunrisers' total could be among the lowest in the IPL but Sammy and Mishra batted sensibly to rescue their innings.
Faulkner, who was impressive in his bowling with a five-wicket haul, took both the wickets of Sammy and Mishra.
