CHENNAI: Four-wicket haul from Arshdeep Singh helped Punjab Kings restrict Sunrisers Hyderabad to 182/9 in 20 overs. For SRH, Nitish Kumar Reddy was the star batter with 64 runs from 37 balls.
Put into bat first, SRH got off to a flier with both Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma doing what they do best. Head hit KG Rabada for three consecutive fours as SRH finished three overs with 26 runs on the board. That is when Arshdeep Singh spoiled the party.
The Punjab pacer first removed Head as a top-edge was caught by Shikhar Dhawan. Then, two balls later, the left-armer delivered a back of length delivery and Aiden Markram edged it to Jitesh Sharma behind the stumps. It was just the breakthrough PBKS were hoping for.
Soon, Sam Curran piled on, dismissing Abhishek after being hit for a four and a six in the fifth over. All of a sudden, SRH were in a spot of bother --- 39/3 in five overs.
From there on, PBKS bowlers put on the brakes, especially Curran and Harpreet Brar, so much that even the Impact sub Rahul Tripathi could not get the innings going. Soon, he fell for 11 runs from 14 balls with SRH getting to 66/4 at the halfway mark. That is just 25 runs in overs 6-10.
All this while, Nitish was slowly settling in at the other end. He was batting on 14 from 17 balls after ten overs. Knowing the need for acceleration, Nitish went after Brar. First, he cut the spinner for four and followed it up with a pull over the ropes. Then came another crunching shot off Heinrich Klaasen's bat to bag the third boundary of the over. With Klaasen and Nitish picking up sixes off Rabada and Curran, respectively, SRH were getting back on track. Although Harshal Patel removed Klaasen for a run-a-ball nine, Abdul Samad hit consecutive fours in the same over to keep them on track.
Then, came the big boost from Nitish. He sent Brar for 22 runs — two fours and as many sixes — and in the process, brought up his first IPL fifty. With Samad for company, he pushed the run-rate over nine and SRH were threatening to post a big total. That is when, Arshdeep struck twice, again, sending back both the set batters. Nitish got out for 64 runs from 37 balls but some late blitz from Shahbaz Ahmed (14 not out off 7) took SRH to 182/9.