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Hyderabad: Shikhar Dhawan scored a responsible 47 not out to guide Sunrisers Hyderabad home to a tense 5-wicket win over Gujarat Lions in Match 34 of Indian Premier League 2016 at Hyderabad on Friday night.
David Warner got SRH off to a fluent start but his dismissal brought about a lull in scoring. Kane Williamson, Moises Henriques, and Yuvraj Singh played slow innings which made life difficult for SRH, but Dhawan’s calming influence and an enterprising knock from Deepak Hooda helped take the hosts over the line.
Hooda played a brief but important innings. He ran well and hit a couple of boundaries as well, but ended up gloving one from Bravo down the leg side to be caught behind for 18 off 12 balls.
Through all this Dhawan kept chugging along. New man Naman Ojha ensured there were no last-minute surprises for SRH, as the hosts ended up winning by 5 wickets with an over to spare. It was GL’s third successive defeat.
Earlier, Aaron Finch scored an invaluable 51 not out from an unfamiliar No. 5 position to help take GL to a mediovre 126 for 6.
It took 14 balls for GL to score their first runs on the day, and things did not get much easier after that.
Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Ashish Nehra started off with maiden overs apiece, which made the GL openers Dwayne Smith and Brendon McCullum understandably jittery. Bhuvneshwar was probing with his line and managed to get the ball to move enough to make Smith jump to his tunes in the first couple of overs.
Having scored a laboured 1 run, Smith edged Bhuvneshwar to Mustafizur Rahman at short third man to leave GL at 2 for 1.
GL skipper Suresh Raina decided to fight fire with fire. He hit Ashish Nehra for a six — GL’s first boundary, which came off the final ball of the fourth over — and later struck Bhuvneshwar for a six and a four off successive balls, but Bhuvneshwar got his revenge when Raina hit one back to him. Raina was out for a 10-ball 20 and GL were now 24 for 2 after 5 oves.
Mustafizur Rahman ought to have struck with his first ball, but Shikhar Dhawan tumbled while taking the catch of Brendon McCullum and the ball ended up popping out of his hands.
However, Mustafizur did not have to wait long, as Dinesh Karthik was soon out edging to Kane Williamson at backward point.
Aaron Finch scored an excellent half-century — reaching his landmark off the final ball of the innings — but it was again a disappointing batting performance from GL once their openers failed to get going.
Brief scores
Gujarat Lions - 126/6 (Finch 51*, Rahman 2-17, B Kumar 2-28)
Sunrisers Hyderabad - 129/5 (Dhawan 47*, Bravo 2-14, Kulkarni 2-177)
Result - Sunrisers Hyderabad won by 5 wickets
