Sunrisers sink Kohli’s RCB

Abu Dhabi, November 6

Jason Holder smashed two fours on the third and fourth balls of the 20th over as Sunrisers Hyderabad knocked out Royal Challengers Bangalore in the Eliminator in the IPL here tonight. With the team needing eight off the final over, bowled by Navdeep Saini, Holder could not score off the second ball after Kane Williamson had taken a single off the first. However, Holder drove the third ball past long off and the fourth ball to the cover boundary to take his team to a six-wicket win. Williamson remained unbeaten on 50 off 44 balls, having played a key role in the win.

SRH will take on Delhi Capitals in the second Qualifier on Sunday.

Much was expected from opener David Warner, who smashed an unbeaten 85 in the previous match against Mumbai Indians in their 10-wicket win, but he made only 17 off 17 and was dismissed caught-behind off Mohammed Siraj after on a DRS call.

Kohli fails as opener

Earlier, SRH produced a brilliant bowling effort to restrict RCB to a modest 131/7. Holder led SRH’s bowling attack with impressive figures of 3/25, and T Natarajan took 2/33 as RCB found the going difficult right from the beginning. AB de Villiers’ (56 off 43) scored a timely half-century to rescue RCB from a horrible start and take the team past the 120-run mark.

RCB had a horrendous start to their innings as they lost two wickets for 15 runs inside four overs after being sent in to bat. Skipper Virat Kohli (6), who opened the innings with Devdutt Padikkal (1), was the first to depart, nicking one on the leg side to Sreevats Goswami — keeping wicket in place of the injured Wriddhiman Saha — off Holder. An over later, Holder picked up his second victim when Padikkal pulled one to Priyam Garg inside the circle. Aaron Finch (32 off 30), who replaced Josh Philippe, and de Villiers then tried to stabilise the innings with a 41-run stand. But twin blows in the 11th over put paid to their effort. First Finch departed, caught by Abdul Samad off Shahbaz Nadeem (1/30), and a ball later, Moeen Ali was caught short by a direct hit from Rashid Khan. — TNS, agencies