Sunrisers Hyderabad 235 for 4 (Klaasen 69, Kishan 55, Head 38, Chahal 1-32) beat Punjab Kings 202 for 7 (Connolly 107*, Cummins 2-34, Shivang 2-45) by 33 runs
Catches win matches is probably one of the oldest and most overused clichés in cricket. But it couldn't have been truer on Wednesday. Punjab Kings (PBKS) dropped three catches and missed a stumping; Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) dropped two but held onto most of the important ones. The final result? SRH, despite a maiden Cooper Connolly century, marched on to defeat PBKS by 33 runs and displace them at the top of the points table.
Travis Head (38 off 19) and Abhishek Sharma (35 off 13) got SRH off to a flying start. Heinrich Klaasen (69 off 43) and Ishan Kishan (55 off 32) made use of the missed chances, smashing quick fifties, while fit-again Nitish Kumar Reddy provided the finishing touch with 29 not out off 13 as SRH finished on 235 for 4.
SRH had never lost defending a 220-plus target in the IPL and that stat remained intact. Connolly - who had two lives - smashed his maiden century in any format, finishing unbeaten on 107 off 59 balls, but got little support from the rest as PBKS were handed a third straight defeat. With the win, SRH are now leading the table with 14 points, while PBKS remain on 13.
Travishek at it, again
SRH came into the game with a powerplay run rate of 11.75. They went at 13.16 on Wednesday evening, amassing 79 in the first six overs. There is no shifting of gears with Travishek - they were at it almost from the get-go. Abhishek defended the first ball of the innings off Arshdeep Singh, and then effortlessly lofted the second ball over extra cover for a six. He then lay into Marco Jansen, who was given the new ball, going 6, 4, 6, 0, 4. Head, a silent spectator till then on 2 off 4, was at his pulling best, hitting back-to-back sixes off Arshdeep, peppering the deep-square-leg boundary before nudging a full toss down leg.
SRH raced past 50 in 3.2 overs but Lockie Ferguson got PBKS back, inducing a top edge of Abhishek's blade that spooned straight up with Shreyas Iyer doing the rest coming in from mid-off. Head, though, rattled along as SRH ended the powerplay on a high.
Katey Martin on Klaasen's rich vein of form
Punjab butterfingers Kings
"It's been a bit of a virus for us" was how Ricky Ponting described PBKS' catching during a mid-game chat. It became worse as the evening progressed. Yuzvendra Chahal struck in his first over, right after the powerplay, deceiving Head with a wrong'un that was miscued to long-off. He could have had at least two more if not for the fielding bug that hit PBKS. Kishan was given three chances - two drops and a missed stumping - on 9, 18 and 19. Klaasen should have had his first single-digit score of the season, but he was dropped on 9. They made PBKS pay.
Kishan was hardly at his fluent best; he had a control percentage of just 65.43 but hung on. After the early chances, he settled in, getting his timing back, stitching an 88-run stand with Klaasen in eight overs. He thumped Vijaykumar Vyshak for three straight sixes in the 14th over to raise a 28-ball fifty. By the time he fell, SRH's run rate had gone past 11.50.
Klaasen and Reddy's big finish
While the focus was on Klaasen, Reddy's was phenomenal with his death-overs hitting. He started the 17th over with a scorching pull off Jansen before tonking Ferguson over deep midwicket as well. Klaasen reached his fifty off 32 balls and ended the innings on a high, dumping Vyshak for a six over extra cover and four to fine leg before falling off the last ball of the innings.
Deep Dasgupta and Katey Martin on the spinner's performance against SRH
PBKS' top-order malfunctions
PBKS had never won in Hyderabad in their last eight attempts. To change that, their top order had to fire. They didn't. Pat Cummins' superb captaincy saw Priyansh Arya fall in the first over. He signalled mid-on to go back to the rope, telegraphing a full ball. Instead, he bowled a bouncer angling away from Arya, who was lulled into a pull, which he only mistimed to deep-backward square leg, where Eshan Malinga took a lovely catch running and diving forward.
Reddy struck with the first ball of his spell, getting Prabhsimran Singh to top-edge a fuller ball straight up with Cummins running back from mid-on and taking another good catch. Prabharya were gone in seven balls. Iyer punched Reddy through covers first ball but skewed a hard-length Malinga delivery to mid-off. Marcus Stoinis salvaged PBKS' powerplay to an extent, taking them to 57 for 3 after six, but the damage had been done.
Katey Martin on the PBKS allrounder's credentials
Conolly 107*, rest 86
In his maiden IPL season, Connolly had already looked the part, and he shone again, even as the rest of the PBKS batters struggled. He hit Cummins for a four and six in the powerplay and went back-to-back fours against Malinga. Once Stoinis fell, caught behind off Shivang Kumar, Connolly ensured he batted through. He got support from Suryansh Shedge for a bit but once Shedge and Shashank Singh fell in quick succession, Connolly was left alone.
He reached his fifty off 34 balls. The required rate by then had crossed 16. The SRH bowlers also made life tough by bowling slower balls into the surface, while the two left-arm spinners, Harsh Dubey and Shivang, curbed the run flow with Jansen not finding his timing.
Connolly raced through the 70s with two sixes against Malinga and reached his century in the final over, with a falling sweep against Shivang over backward square leg. While Connolly finished unbeaten on 107, the second-best score of the PBKS innings was 28, and that proved to be the difference.
