Gujarat Lions are currently on 2nd in the league table with 12 points and can reach the top by winning this match. Sunrisers, on the other hand, are on 5th place with 8 points. There was a good news in the Sunrisers camp as Yuvraj Singh is making a comeback after an injury during the T20 World Cup, thus making Sunrisers Hyderabad a complete side.
Warner won the toss and chose to put the Gujarat Lions players in to bats. The top order of Lions failed in the last match and this downfall continued in this match too as Smith and McCullum fell for 1 and 7 runs respectively. Raina and Finch tried doing some damage control but lost wickets again before the end overs.
On a slow pitch, Warner started aggressively to give Sunrisers an initial push. Dhawan from the other end stood as a spectator and took his innings slow and steady until the 13th over, where he scored 11 runs and didn’t let the asking rate climb high in a low scoring game. Wickets continued to fall at one end but Dhawan stood firm and SRH won with 6 balls and 5 wickets to spare
Here’s a list of important numbers and stats from this match –
Disaster Powerplay – Sunrisers Hyderabad lost 3 wickets and scored just 26 runs in the first 6 overs. This is their lowest score in this IPL so far.
Wait for the first run – Gujarat Lions played 14 deliveries before scoring their 1st run in this match. This is the most number of balls taken by any team to score their first run.
100th IPL match for Bravo – Dwayne Bravo played his 100th match in IPL, he is the 3rd overseas player to complete this feat. Other two players to do so are AB de Villiers and K Pollard. This was also his 300th T20 Match.
400 for Warner – David Warner became the second player in this season of IPL to complete 400 runs after Virat Kohli. Warner has now scored 410 runs, whereas Orange Cap holder, Kohli has 433 runs in IPL 2016.
Kulkarni Special – Dhawal Kulkarni bowled his 3rd wicket maiden in this match. No other bowler in IPL 2016 has bowled more than 1 wicket-maiden. So far there have been 8 wicket maidens in this season, of which 3 come from Kulkarni.