Warner Leads Sunrisers To Nine Wicket Win

Hyderabad: Captain David Warner smashed 76 off 45 balls as Sunrisers Hyderabad defeated Gujarat Lions by nine wickets for their second straight win in the Indian Premier League here on Sunday.

Sunrisers restricted the Lions to 135 for seven before Warner led his team to a resounding win with 27 balls to spare. He was well supported by Moises Henriques (52 off 39) as the Australian got the job done with an unbeaten 108-run stand for the second wicket. Sunrisers had beaten Royal Challengers Bangalore in the IPL opener on April 5. Gujarat Lions, on the other hand, have lost their opening two matches of the tournament, having suffered a 10-wicket defeat against Kolkata Knight Riders on Friday.

Earlier, young Afghanistan leg-spinner Rashid Khan's fairytale run continued as his three-wicket burst helped Sunrisers Hyderabad restrict Gujarat Lions to a paltry 135 for 7 in Hyderabad on Sunday. After an impressive debut, Rashid once again finished with superb figures of 3/19 in four overs. He rattled the Lions top-order with wickets of Brendon McCullum (5), Aaron Finch (3) and skipper Suresh Raina (5) in the 5th, 7th and 9th over of the innings.

Lions never recovered from the setbacks even though Dinesh Karthik (30) and Dwayne Smith (37) added 56 runs for the fifth wicket to stem the rot. But it was the damage done by the Afghan 'Wonderkid' that spelt doom for Raina and his men. McCullum was gone trying to sweep a googly while Raina played for the wrong 'un only to be fooled by an orthodox leg-break. The hard-hitting Finch also failed to read a googly and in the process, was trapped plumb in-front. He looked dangerous during his entire spell bowling as many 11 dot balls in four overs.

Seamer Bhuvneshwar Kumar (2/21 in 4 overs) and Ashish Nehra (1/27 in 4 overs) also bowled well. Credit should be given to David Warner as he gauged the slowness of the pitch and introduced orthodox left-arm spinner Bipul Sharma into the attack with Bhuvneshwar Kumar.

Jason Roy (31 off 21 balls) hit a few boundaries before a mistimed pull shot off Bhuvneshwar brought his downfall. Tottering at 57 for 4, it wasn't easy for Karthik and Smith to pull things back with an attacking display as there weren't too many reputed batsmen left after them.

Karthik was uncharacteristically slow scoring 30 off 32 balls with two boundaries while Smith shot four boundaries and a six in 27 balls. In the end, both were out in quick succession of each other and Lions finished with a sub-par total.