Sunrisers beat Mumbai to close in on play-offs
Shikhar Dhawan made a superb unbeaten half-century and Siddarth Kaul took three wickets as Sunrisers Hyderabad closed in on an Indian Premier League play-off place by stopping the rot with a seven-wicket win over Mumbai Indians.
Mumbai are the only team to already be assured of a spot in the last four, but their momentum was halted by the defending champions at the Rajiv Gandhi International Cricket Stadium on Monday.
The Indians could only post 138-7 despite captain Rohit Sharma contributing 67 from only 45 deliveries, paceman Kaul (3-24) and the tournament's leading wicket-taker Bhuvneshwar Kumar (2-29) doing the bulk of the damage.
Dhawan become the second-highest run-scorer in the 2017 IPL with 62 not out from 46 balls and Moises Henriques hit a brisk 44 as Sunrisers moved five points ahead of Kings XI Punjab, who need to win their three remaining games to have any chance of making the play-offs.
Get out of the corn lads! Our boys are putting on quite a show - @SunRisers @davidwarner31 #SRHvMI pic.twitter.com/XC78SlOTlD
— IndianPremierLeague (@IPL) May 8, 2017
Sunrisers lost their previous two matches, but had the leaders in trouble on 36-3 after Mohammad Nabi bowled Lendl Simmons in the second over and Kaul struck twice.
Mumbai only had 59 runs on the board at the halfway stage of their innings, but Rohit smashed Rashid Khan for six and also gave Henriques the treatment to provide some much needed acceleration.
Rohit brought up his half-century off only 34 balls, but the classy India batsman was on his way after playing on to a poor delivery from Kaul and Bhuvneshwar took two wickets in the last over of a disappointing Mumbai innings.
Mitchell McClenaghan claimed the huge scalp of David Warner with the left-arm paceman's first ball, but Dhawan and Henriques put the home side well on course for victory with a second-wicket stand of 91.
Dhawan launched Karn Sharma for six over long-on, while Henriques found the boundary six times, but missed out on a half-century when he got a leading edge off one from Jasprit Bumrah which held up in the pitch and was taken at extra cover by Rohit.
Yuvraj Singh (9) was struggling with a finger injury and fell cheaply, but Dhawan and Vijay Shankar (15 not out) saw Warner's side to victory with 10 balls to spare.