Perera, Mishra star in Sunrisers' nervous win over Pune Warriors

A brilliant bowling display from the Sunrisers Hyderabad took the hosts to a comprehensive 22-run victory over the Pune Warriors at Hyderabad. The ball was skidding onto the wicket, and it was the Sunrisers’ bowlers who made use of the wicket effectively, and came up trumps.

The Sunrisers, after being put into bat on a flat surface, had a steady start. The first six overs of the innings produced 38 runs for the loss of 1 wicket. Subsequently, Sangakkara begun to accelerate once the first bowling change was made by Mathews. Kumar Sangakkara struck two blistering boundaries before losing his patience to Rahul Sharma, as he danced down the track, trying to clobber him over midwicket, and was cleaned up for 15.

Yuvraj Singh and Rahul Sharma bowled extremely well, and kept the pressure on the Sunrisers batsman. As the pressure started to mount, Reddy lost his patience to Yuvraj Singh, and was knocked off for 27. Sunrisers’ star player Cameron White, though, offered some resistance at the wicket, before losing his cool, and was caught at deep midwicket by Marsh off Samuels for 10.

Perera looked in fine touch, as he took the attack to the Warriors. He scored a quickfire 30 runs and shared a handy partnership of 46 runs with Vihara before being caught at long-on off Dinda.

Clearly, the Sunrisers found it extremely difficult to progress the innings, as Mathews marshalled his troops really well. Indeed, they had good start, but failed to convert the start into a meaningful innings.

The Sunrisers eventually ended their innings at 126 for the loss of 6 wickets, which was considered a below-par score, considering the nature of the wicket.

Dinda scalped two wickets for 29 runs, while Bhuvaneswar Kumar finished with excellent figures of 1/19 off 4 overs. Rahul Sharma was also economical, as he finished with figures of 1/21.

The Warriors made a cautious start as they wanted to see off the first spell of Ishant and Steyn. Soon after, Uthappa begun to show his class, as he struck a flat six off Ishant Sharma in the fifth over, to start the proceedings for the Warriors. However, later Perera’s twin strike jolted the Warriors. He first grabbed the important wicket of Uthappa for 24, and soon followed with the wicket of Samuels for 5.

Soon after, the spinners came to the party, as Amit Mishra was extracting lot of turn from the surface. He was rewarded with the wicket of Yuvraj Singh (2) for his accuracy, as the latter was deceived by the turn and was stumped by Parthiv Patel.

Following the wicket of Yuvraj Singh, the Sunrisers were never able to boost the run-rate as they kept losing wickets at regular intervals.

Pune Warriors still held hopes of winning the match when they had batsman in the form of Taylor and Nayar, both aggressive in their nature. When Nayar looked as if he was getting into the rhythm, he was dismissed by Mishra for 19.

From there on, it was a pretty much one-sided contest, as the Sunrisers’ bowlers kept chipping away with wickets, and in the end bundled the Pune Warriors for 104, with Steyn grabbing the last wicket of Dinda for nought.

Dale Steyn and Mishra picked up three wickets each, and set the tone for the Sunrisers, while Perera scalped two wickets.

Pune Warriors play their next match against Kings XI Punjab on April 7, while the Sunrisers play their next match against Royal Challengers on the same day.