CLT20: Sunrisers see off Faisalabad Wolves to book a place in the main stages

Shikhar Dhawan scored a 50-ball 59

Sunrisers Hyderabad booked their place in the Champions League main stages by inflicting a seven wicket-defeat on Faisalabad Wolves, who will be heading back home after completing their dead rubber against Kandurata Maroons on Friday.

Batting first in a must-win clash against Sunrisers, Pakistan openers Ammar Mahmood and Ali Waqas got off to a decent start. They combined to score 48 runs in 7.2 overs and hardly experienced any difficulties. Dale Steyn, coming back from an extended injury lay-off, failed to have any impact on a helpful track for the second consecutive time.

With his pacers not giving him any breakthrough, Shikhar Dhawan summoned his leg-spinning duo of Amit Mishra and Karan Sharma, who took a wicket each in their very first over. Mahmood perished in an attempt to increase the scoring rate, which had gone down to 5.50 rpo courtesy of Mishra’s economical spell of 3-1-5-1, for a 38-ball 31.

The three quick wickets left Wolves reeling at a score of 69/3 in 12.4 overs, leaving their captain Misbah-ul-Haq to take the rearguard action again. The 39-year-old who has been left stranded in such situations a number of times before, scored an unbeaten 56 off 40 deliveries to help his team reach 127/5, thereby giving Wolves something to defend.

All of Sunrisers’ bowlers picked up a wicket with the exception of Dale Steyn. However, unlike last match Steyn did not leak many runs, something for Sunrisers’ to be hopeful about with the main stages of the tournament to commence soon. His spell read 4-0-20-0.

In reply, Dhawan and Parthiv Patel gave their team a solid start. The southpaws combined to score 68 runs in 8.5 overs to take the Pakistan domestic T20 champions completely out of the game before Patel was dismissed by Ehsan Adil, pulling straight to short midwicket.

Misbah tried all that he could, even made Saeed Ajmal bowl four consecutive overs, but could not help watching his team slump to yet another defeat. The left-arm spinner, Imran Khalid picked up Dhawan and Biplab Samantray in a span of three deliveries, but Sunrisers, only needing 16 runs in the next five overs, had sealed the match by then.

Duminy and Darren Sammy, remaining unbeaten on 20 and 14 respectively, took the Sunrisers home. Sammy finished the match off with three boundaries in as many balls from Asad Ali, with 2.3 more overs to spare. Mishra, who finished with the figures of 4-1-13-1, was declared the man of the match.