Sunrisers Hyderabad rose to number position following their victory against PBKS on Wednesday. Punjab Kings lost to the orange army by 33 run margins. Marco Jansen was subjected to heavy shelling by Abhishek Sharma, Travis Head, Ishan Kishan (55; 32b, 2×4, 5×6) and Heintich Klassen 969;43b,3×4,4×6). The SRH cruised to 234/4 and effectively killed the play the reducing Punjab to 23/3 in 4 overs.
Winning the toss, Pat Cumins began the proceedings as he as he removed Priyansh Arya in the first over, by a brilliant catch by Eshan Malinga at deep square leg. Nitish Reddy struck on the first ball of the second over as he got Prabhsimran Singh with Cummins taking a stellar catch running backwards from cover. Shreyas Iyer was soon removed by Malinga. The fight between Connolly and Marcus Stoinis for the fourth wicket, didnt last long as Stoinis was dismissed by Shivang Kumar. The Kings kept losing wickets with not much from any batter, apart from Connolly.
As per experts, PBKS made some major errors on the fields in Hyderabad that dethroned them from number 1. fielders dropped as many as three catches, with Shashank Singh, Connolly and Lockie Ferguson dropping one each. The first instance took place during the eighth over of Ferguson, when Connolly dropped Ishan Kishan’s sitter at the deep backward square leg. Shashank was the next culprit as his terrible timing continued. Heinrich Klaasen slog swept Yuzvendra Chahal to deep backward square leg, where Shashank dropped another easy one.
Chahal was already in disbelief when Shashank dropped an easy one. He wore a stoic look when Lockie Ferguson put down another one at deep backward square leg as Kishan got another life. The nightmare wasn’t over yet. Four balls later, wicketkeeper Prabhsimran missed out on a stumping chance against Kishan. PBKS’ costly errors powered SRH to 235/4 which felt threatening against a hard-hitting Punjab line-up but they proved way more on the night.
SRH now stand at number 1 with 7 wins in 11 matches. Rocked by three back-to-back defeats, PBKS slipped to second position with 13 points from 10 games. The win marked SRHs ninth victory over PBKS in Hyderabad- a record-breaking streak by one team against an opponent at a single venue in IPL history.