Sunrisers beat fellow strugglers Chennai
- Published
Sunrisers Hyderabad beat Chennai Super Kings by five wickets in a match between the bottom two in the Indian Premier League.
Both sides went into the game with just two wins from their opening eight games, but it is Chennai who remain rooted to the bottom after suffering a fourth successive home defeat.
The five-time IPL winners were skittled out for 154 with one ball remaining in their innings, with Harshal Patel the pick of the bowlers taking 4-28.
Hyderabad stumbled to 54-3 and 90-4 in their chase, but a fifth-wicket partnership worth 49 between Nitish Kumar Reddy (19) and Kamindu Mendis (32) saw them home with eight balls to spare.
Kamindu hit the winning runs to complete a fine display that included bowling figures of 1-26 and a stunning catch to dismiss Chennai debutant Dewald Brevis.
A first win in Chennai for Hyderabad lifts last season's finalists above Rajasthan Royals into eighth and within four points of the play-off places.
Having been put into bat, the tone of Chennai's innings was set when opener Shaik Rasheed edged a wonderful seaming delivery from Mohammed Shami to first slip with the first ball of the match.
Brevis, who joined Chennai last week as a replacement for the injured Gurjapneet Singh, showed the most resistance with a punchy 42 from 25 balls before falling to Kamindu's stunning diving catch at long-off.
Hyderabad lost Abhishek Sharma with the second ball of their reply, but Travis Head (19) and Ishan Kishan (44) kept the innings on track.
Noor Ahmad (2-42) removed Kishan and Aniket Verma (19) in successive overs as Chennai sensed an opening, before Kamindu and Nitish saw Hyderabad over the line.
