Sharjah: Chennai Super Kings defeated Sunrisers Hyderabad by six wickets in the Indian Premier League (IPL), at Sharjah Cricket Stadium in Sharjah on Thursday to become the first team this season to qualify for the playoffs. Meanwhile Hyderabad have now been officially eliminated from the tournament.
Chasing 135, CSK’s path was laid down by their opening duo – Faf du Plessis(41) and Ruturaj Gaikwad(45) stitching a stunning 75 run stand before the later got caught by Kane Williamson off Jason Holder. It looked like Chennai would stormed to the win until Hyderabad picked quick wickets to stretch the game to the wire.
Holder(3/27) lanky seamer revived the hopes of Hyderabad for a brief even though the openers set-up a good base. The pace was not quite up to mark and the fall-of wickets in quick succession meant the game was taken to the penultimate over where CSK skipper MS Dhoni smashed a huge six off the fourth delivery to get the game over the line.
Earlier, Hyderabad rode on Wriddhiman Saha’s gritty 44 along with cameos from Abdul Samad(18), Abhishek Sharma(18) and Rashid Khan(17) to reach 134/7 in 20 overs whereas apart from these four, none were even able to go into double digits. Both Jason Roy and skipper Kane Williamson departed leaving their batting order reeling.
Wicket-keeper batsman Saha did manage to put some resilience against a disciplined bowling performance lead by seamer Josh Hazlewood(3/24) and veteran Dwayne Bravo(2/17). The two youngsters Abhishek and Samad added crucial 35 runs in the middle of the innings to get to a some sort of respectable total.
Brief Scores: Chennai Super Kings 139/4 in 19.4 overs(Ruturaj Gaikwad 45, Faf du Plessis 41; Jason Holder 3/27) beat Sunrisers Hyderabad 134/7 in 20 overs(Wriddhiman Saha 44, Abhishek Sharma 18; Josh Hazlewood 3/24) by 6 wickets.
