Visakhapatnam: Skipper David Warner led from the front with a blistering 91 while Shikhar Dhawan scored a gritty 54 as Sunrisers Hyderabad defeated defending champions Kolkata knight Riders by 16 runs via Duckworth-Lewis method in a rain-truncated match of the Indian Premier League cricket tournament, here on Wednesday.
Courtesy Warner's 55-ball knock, Sunrisers scored a decent 176 for four in 20 overs but due to an hour long rain delay, the revised target for KKR turned out to be 118 from 12 overs. The Shah Rukh Khan co-owned franchise could only manage 101 for four in 12 overs.
Also see: IPL 8: Sunrisers Hyderabad vs Kolkata Knight Riders scoreboard, Match 19
Credit should be given to the ‘Two Kumars from Meerut'— Praveen (1/18 from 2 overs) and Bhuvneshwar (1/24), who gave away just 5 and 7 runs respectively in the 10th and 11th over as KKR were left to score 25 off the last over.
Bhuvneshwar again bowled a decent last over giving away 8 runs as Warner and company logged home two more points by virtue of their second win from five games.
KKR skipper Gautam Gambhir couldn't repeat his performance of the previous game as he was dismissed while trying to whack a Praveen Kumar delivery over mid-wicket.
Robin Uthappa hit a few audacious shots en route his 21-ball-34 before flicking one from Moises Henriques to Praveen, who was placed at short fine leg.
Andre Russell (19 from 10 balls) again showed his big hitting prowess with a couple of huge sixes with one off left-arm spinner Bipul Sharma that went into the top tier.
However he was gone trying another big hit off Ravi Bopara being caught by Dale Steyn at long-off boundary.
Once Russell was gone, it was left to Manish Pandey (33 not out) and Yusuf Pathan (6). Much depended on Pathan, who has not been able to play a match winning knock singlehandedly for his franchise since a long time, failed yet again to provide the winning push.
With the win Sunrisers Hyderabad now jumps upto 4th position in points table with 4 points in 5 matches while Kolkata Knight Riders stays at no. 3 with 6 points in 5 games.
