Sunrisers Hyderabad vs Punjab Kings (Match 14) – Highlights

Yesterday cricket fans were almost close to witnessing the first century of the 16th season of IPL. However, the Punjab Kings opener and captain Shikhar Dhawan could not fulfill that make that happen at last. He scored an unbeaten 99 off 66 balls. Dhawan missed the first century of this year’s IPL by 1 run.

But Dhawan’s storm did not prevail in front of the host Sunrisers Hyderabad. Rahul Tripathi and skipper Aiden Markram led Sunrisers Hyderabad to their first win of the season as they defeated Punjab Kings by 8 wickets. They played two matches before and lost both.

Punjab Kings and Sunrisers Hyderabad faced each other in the 14th match of IPL 2023 on Sunday (April 9). After losing the toss and batting first, the Kings scored 143 runs after losing 9 wickets in the scheduled 20 overs. In reply, the Sunrisers reached the port of victory after losing only 2 wickets with 17 balls remaining.

Chasing an easy target of 144 runs, Sunrisers lost 2 wickets at the beginning. 27 runs came from the team’s opening pair. Opener Harry Brook, who scored 13 runs, was dismissed by Arshdeep Singh in 3.5 overs. Another opener, Mayank Agarwal returned to the dressing room with 21 off 20 balls being a victim to Rahul Chahar. After 2 wickets went down for 45 runs, Rahul Tripathi and captain Markram took the helm of the team.

The duo put up an unbroken match-winning stand of 100 runs for the 3rd wicket. Tripathi remained unbeaten scoring 74 runs off 48 balls for the Sunrisers. He hit 3 sixes with 10 boundaries. On the other hand, Markram left the field with the victory after playing an unbeaten inning of 37 runs off 21 balls with the help of 6 boundaries.

Earlier, the Kings’ batsmen came under pressure from the start due to the Sunrisers bowlers’ bowling attack at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium in Hyderabad. Bhuvneshwar Kumar trapped opener Prabhsimran Singh lbw on the very first ball of the match.

Then South African left-arm pacer Marco Jansen dismissed Matthew Short (1) and Jitesh Sharma (4) in two consecutive overs to leave Punjab’s score on 22/3. From there, Dhawan, who opened the innings, made a pair of 41 runs with English all-rounder Sam Curran.

Then the magic of Mayank Markande began. The right-handed leg-spinner had single-handedly demolished Punjab’s batting line-up. He started wicket-hunting with Sam Curran who scored 22 runs. Then one by one Markande took the wickets of Shahrukh Khan (4), Rahul Chahar (0), and Nathan Ellis (0). He conceded only 15 runs in a magical spell of 4 overs.

Umran Malik also bowled well alongside Markande’s Magic. Although he gave away several runs in the last over, he took two wickets in the first three overs. Kings’ team lost 5 wickets in these 25 runs to score 63 to 88. Kings’ score was 88 for 9 when Nathan Ellis became Markande’s fourth victim in the last ball of the 15th over.

Dhawan became the hero of the team from there. He added an IPL record of 55 runs for the tenth wicket with Mohit Rathee. Rathee’s contribution to the pair is only 1 run. However, he got the opportunity to play 2 balls. Dhawan was finally unbeaten on 99 runs at one end of the wicket. Dhawan, who started the last over with 91 runs, reached 99 with a six off the last ball.

Dhawan hit 12 fours and 5 sixes in a 66-ball inning and single-handedly scored 66.25 percent of the Kings’ innings, which is the second-highest in IPL history. Thanks to the captain’s heroic innings, the Kings could finally make a fighting score of 143 runs.

Apart from Mayank Markande, Umran Malik and Marco Jansen took 2 wickets each for the Sunrisers. Besides, Bhuvneshwar Kumar took 1 wicket for the winning camp. However, despite the team getting defeated, Shikhar Dhawan was selected as the player of the match for his brilliant innings.

Sunrisers Hyderabad vs Punjab Kings Scoreboard

Punjab Kings – 143/9 (20.0)

Sunrisers Hyderabad – 145/2 (17.1)

Result – Sunrisers Hyderabad won by 8 wickets

Player of the match – Shikhar Dhawan

Sunrisers Hyderabad vs Punjab Kings Playing XIs