Punjab Kings defeat Sunrisers Hyderabad by 5 runs in a low scoring thriller

What was anticipated to be a high-scoring feast, the match between Punjab Kings and Sunrisers Hyderabad turned out to be a low-scoring encounter, where the batsmen were made to struggle for every single run that they scored.

What was anticipated to be a high-scoring feast, the match between Punjab Kings and Sunrisers Hyderabad turned out to be a low-scoring encounter, where the batsmen were made to struggle for every single run that they scored.

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On a slow track, Kane Williamson won the toss and invited KL Rahul to bat first. The Punjab Kings had made one major change to their team. To strengthen their batting line up they had dropped Fabian Allen to make way for Chris Gayle. However, all their tactics seem to have backfired when they lost both their openers early on in their innings. The latter batsmen like Gayle and Aiden Markham, who are known to smash the bowls all around the park had to adapt to the situation. This forced them to play against the natural flow of their game and they too ended up getting out rather cheaply than expected.

Towards the end of the innings, Deepak Hooda, Harpreet Brar, and Nathan Ellis, in that order, tried to provide a thrust that inched the scorecard past the 120 runs mark. Jason Holder, Rashid Khan, and Sandeep Sharma were the picks of the bowlers for SRH, as they allow the Punjabi boys to free their arms. Which resulted in them throwing their wickets away and ended up scoring just 125 in their 20 overs.

The story of the second innings was not so very different from the first. The SRH batting order was also rattled in the very first over by Mohammed Shami. He picked up David Warner on the very third bowl of the inning and came back in the third over to send back the SRH captain Williamson for 1. This reduced the SRH team to 10 runs for 2 wickets.

Hope was not lost for the Hyderabadis as Manish Panday along with Wriddhiman Saha, tried to anchor the inning towards the winning score. Although a magnificent wrong one by Bishnoi undid the resistance from Panday and later on by Kedar Jadhav along with Abdul Samad, by sending all three of them back to the pavilion for the score of 13, 12, and 1 respectively.

Unperturbed by the wickets falling around him, Saha kept on his act of diligence. He was later joined by Jason Holder who quickly dispatched a few balls to the stand to bring SRH back on the winning track. He managed to drag this slow-paced game to the final over where SRH required 17 runs to win the game.

Nathan Ellis the young Australian bowler, who was bestowed with the responsibility of bowling the final over managed to contain the West Indian. As a result, Punjab Kings registered their fourth win of the season by defeating Sunrisers Hyderabad by 5 runs.