Mullanpur (Punjab) [India], April 10 (ANI): After his side held their nerve to eke out a narrow win over the Punjab Kings (PBKS), Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) skipper Pat Cummins reserved high praise for all-rounder Nitish Reddy for his stellar show that proved to be the difference between the two teams in the end.
Despite a valiant fightback from Shashank Singh and Ashutosh Sharma after the loss of early wickets, Punjab Kings (PBKS) fell two runs short of another memorable win against Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) in their Indian Premier League (IPL) match at Mullanpur Stadium on Tuesday.
Speaking at the post-match presentation, skipper Cummins came out in praise of Nitish, saying, “He was awesome, fantastic debut last week. Straight to the top for the order, fantastic in the field, bowled three overs too. To get us to 180 off his bat, it was amazing.”
Cummins said it was a great game of cricket and despite PBKS bowling well in the start, SRH did well to reach 182 and defend it. He also pointed out that the ‘Impact Player’ rule deepens the batting.
“If you get 150-160, you are going to lose nine out of ten games anyway. We knew the new ball was going to be a key time. We were pretty happy (with our score). We saw what happened with the new ball for them, so thought if me and Bhuvi (Bhuvneshwar Kumar) could start off with a wicket of wickets, it would be good. We have plenty of left-armers and right-armers, so just trying to give the bowlers the best chance of success,” he said, giving a further insight into the team’s performance and bowling tactics.
Earlier in the evening, PBKS opted to bowl first after winning the toss. Stifling the visitors with a disciplined bowling effort, they reduced the Sunrisers to 100/5 in 13.1 overs at one point. A 50-run partnership between Nitish Reddy (64 in 37 balls, with four boundaries and five sixes) and Abdul Samad (25 in 12 balls, with five fours) helped SRH push the score to 182/9 in 20 overs.
Arshdeep Singh (4/29) was the pick of the bowlers. Harshal Patel (2/30) and Sam Curran (2/41) were also great with the ball. Kagiso Rabada took a wicket for PBKS.
In the run-chase of 183, PBKS lost wickets frequently and were reduced to 114/6 in 15.3 overs. A remarkable fightback from Shashank Singh (46* in 25 balls, with six fours and a six) and Ashutosh Sharma (33* in 15 balls, with three fours and two sixes) almost sealed a win for Punjab, but they fell short by two runs.
Bhuvneshwar Kumar (2/32) was the pick of the bowlers for SRH. Skipper Pat Cummins, Jaydev Unadkat, T Natrajan, Nitish Reddy took a wicket each for SRH. Nitish took home the ‘Player of the Match’ award.
SRH has climbed up to fifth place with three wins and two losses, giving them six points. PBKS is in sixth place, having won two and lost three matches, giving them four points. (ANI)
