Hyderabad defend poor score to win

The Sunrisers Hyderabad pulled off a surprising win against the Rajasthan Royals on Friday, defending a mediocre score to win by 23 runs and move into fourth place on the IPL table with one game to go ahead of the play-offs.

The Sunrisers Hyderabad pulled off a surprising win against the Rajasthan Royals on Friday, defending a mediocre score to win by 23 runs and move into fourth place on the IPL table with one game to go ahead of the play-offs.

Hyderabad scored just 136 for nine in their knock, with Biplap Samantray's 55 the only thing preventing humiliation and James Faulkner taking a five-fer. But the Royals, in turmoil in the wake of the spot fixing scandal, could only make 113 for nine.

Faulkner would have been gutted by the loss, given this was the second time this season he'd taken five against the Sunrisers, and the Royals would have been confident of a win after restricting their hosts. As it was, they remained in third place.

Aside from Samantray's 55 off 46 balls, none of the Hyderabad batsmen came to the party, with the next-best score going to Darren Sammy, who made 23 before falling to Faulkner.

The Royals were hampered early on in their knock by some tight bowling by Dale Steyn, who ended up taking two wickets, those of Brad Hodge and Kevon Cooper, but more importantly going at less than five to the over.

Karan Sharma, Amit Mishra and Thisara Perera also took two wickets apiece, with Perera striking twice in one over to break the Royals' last chance. He got rid of Shane Watson and Stuart Binny to leave the lower order with it all to do.

Cooper, coming in at number nine, was the top scorer for the Royals, making 26, while skipper Rahul Dravid tried at the top but could only add 25 in what seemed to be a losing effort from the get-go.

Sunrisers Hyderabad: P Patel, S Dhawan, H Vihari, C White, T Perera, D Sammy, B Samantray, K Sharma, A Mishra, D Steyn, I Sharma

Rajasthan Royals: R Dravid, A Rahane, S Samson, S Watson, S Binny, B Hodge, Sachin Baby, K Cooper, J Faulkner, P Tambe, S Trivedi

Latest