Chandigarh: One man made all the difference. What seemed to be a lost cause was turned into a thrilling win for the Sunrisers Hyderabad by big-hitting Sri Lankan Thisara Perera.
West Indian mystery spinner Sunil Narine, with his bagful of tricks and a haul of 4/9, had almost brought the Trinidad & Tobago side to the doors of victory. However, Perera (57 off 32b, 4x4, 4x6) had different plans. The southpaw played out Narine cautiously and attacked the medium-pacers of T&T to snatch a sensational four-wicket win for the Sunrisers.
The support cast was played by Darren Sammy and Karan Sharma, who hit the winning runs for the Hyderabad team. The victory ensured a successful campaign for the Shikhar Dhawan-led side at the PCA stadium, Mohali where they won three out of their four matches.
Earlier, Brian Lara's protege Darren Bravo gave a master class, quite on the similar lines, and having an identical effect against the Hyderabad team.
The confident, swagger, high backlift, exquisite timing everything was reminiscent of Lara. Especially, the two sixes Bravo hit off Amit Mishra in the 12th over had Calypso flair written all over it.
Ishant Sharma too was taken for some special treatment by the Trinidadian, as junior Bravo hit the Indian speedster for 33 runs off the 18 balls that he faced from him.
Soon after Bravo's (66 off 44b, 5x4, 4x6) dismissal the Trinidad and Tobago innings fell away for a while, with two quick wickets of Jason Mohammed and Nicolas Pooran. A par score of 160 runs seemed all too distant at that time.
Earlier, Sunrisers Hyderabad won the toss and elected to bowl.
Sunrisers have brought in Thisara Perera and Hanuma Vihari.
Teams
Hyderabad: Shikhar Dhawan (capt), Parthiv Patel (wk), Jean-Paul Duminy, Thisara Perera, Darren Sammy, Hanuma Vihari, Ashish Reddy, Karan Sharma, Amit Mishra, Dale Steyn, Ishant Sharma
Trinidad and Tobago: Lendl Simmons, Evin Lewis, Darren Bravo, Jason Mohammed, Denesh Ramdin (capt & wk), Nicolas Pooran, Navin Stewart, Rayad Emrit, Sunil Narine, Samuel Badree, Ravi Rampaul
Brief scores
Trinidad and Tobago 160 for 8 (Bravo 66, Sammy 2-21) by four wickets
Sunrisers Hyderabad 164 for 6 (Perera 57*, Narine 4-9)
Result Sunrisers Hyderabad won by 4 wickets
MOM Thissara Perera (Sunrisers Hyderabad)
Points Sunrisers Hyderabad 4, Trinidad & Tobago 0