#VIVOIPL 2019 : K L Rahul Anchors Kings XI Punjab As They Beat Sunrisers Hyderabad By 6 Wickets

Picture : Twitter / IPL

Sunrisers Hyderabad after their dismal outing against Mumbai Indians in the last match were hoping to get back tow their winning ways against Kings XI Punjab at Mohali. But that did not happen as they crashed to their second successive defeat.

After Kings XI Punjab Skipper won the toss and elected to field , SRH found runs hard to come by. And for the first time the SRH were not able to cut loose on the power play. Jonny Bairstow fell early for 1 . And the pressure was on the brittle middle order. SRH so far had rode on the brilliance of Warner and Bairstow so their middle order was virtually untested. Hence after Bairstow’s early dismissal Warner hung on till the very end and saw the side reach a below par 150 / 4 in 20 overs. Warner hit an unlike Warner innings 71 not out of 62 balls. A bit too many balls for his standard. Deepak Hooda 3 ball 14 added some useful runs towards the end. Vijay Shankar struggled for his 26. Mohammad Nabi was run out for 12.

Credit to the Kings bowlers who kept them under check. The kings wicket- takers were Mujeeb Ur Rahman 1/ 34 ( 4 overs) , Mohammed Shami 1/ 30 ( 4 overs) , *Ravichandran Ashwin 1/ 30 ( 4 overs)

In reply the Kings XI despite losing Chris Gayle ( 15) early never looked in trouble as Kl Rahul and MayanK Agarwal put them on track with attractive fifties. The duo put on 114 runs for the second wicket. Agarwal scored 55 off 43 balls with 3 fours and three sixes. David Miller ( 1) and Mandeep Singh ( 2) feel in quick succession to give jitters in the Kings camp.

Fortunately for the Kings K L Rahul anchored the innings with an unbeaten 71 off 53 balls with 7 fours and 1 six and almost took the game to last ball finish as they reached 151/ 4 in 19. 5 overs. Sam Curran was the other not out batsman on 5. Skipper Ashwin admitted that that the win was too close for comfort.

For SRH wicket- takers were Sandeep Sharma 2/ 21 ( 4 overs) , Rashid Khan 1/ 20 ( 4 overs) , Siddarth Kaul 1/ 42 ( 4 overs)