IPL 2017 | MS Dhoni blitz secures second successive victory for Pune

Brief Scores: Sunrisers Hyderabad 176/3 (Moises Henriques 55*, David Warner 43; Daniel Christian 1/20, Imran Tahir 1/23) lost to Rising Pune Supergiant 179/4 (Rahul Tripathi 59, MS Dhoni 61; Rashid Khan 1/17, Bipul Sharma 1/30) by 6 wickets.

Sunrisers Hyderabad were dealt a blow even before a ball had been bowled when Yuvraj Singh was ruled out due to illness and Bipul Sharma was named as his replacement. Meanwhile, Rising Pune Supergiant gave Washington Sundar his IPL debut in place of Rahul Chahar. While both captains admitted that they would have liked to chase at the toss, it was Steve Smith who came out on top in the game of luck and he elected to field first.

Sunrisers make a slow but steady start

Sunrisers Hyderabad got off to a good start with David Warner and Shikhar Dhawan maintaining a healthy run rate and guiding the defending champions to 45/0 at the end of the powerplay overs. Needing a wicket, Steve Smith turned to his strike bowler Imran Tahir to provide the breakthrough in the ninth over. It took the South African just one ball to send Dhawan, who top-edged the ball straight into the hands of Rahul Tripathi. The dismissal brought the in-form Kane Williamson to the crease and him along with David Warner ensured SRH reached 65 runs at the end of the first half of their innings with the loss of just one wicket.

Moises Henriques leads his side to a par score  

The duo took their time settling down but just as the Kiwi started accelerating, taking 13 runs off a Ben Stokes over, Daniel Christian removed him to put the pressure back on the visitors. Warner’s uncharacteristic innings, 43 off 40 balls, was over soon as well when he missed a switch hit off Unadkat bowling.With just 3 overs to go, it appeared like Pune would have to chase a sub-par score as the defending champions found themselves at a total of just 134. But Moises Henriques (55 off 28) and Deepak Hooda (19 off 10) smashed an impressive 42 off the final three overs to take Hyderabad to a competitive total of 176/3.

Tripathi shows his class 

Rahul Tripathi finally converted one of his starts to a big score in this season’s IPL but that wasn’t how the innings started. Bhuvneshwar Kumar opened the bowling for the visitors giving away just four runs. Rahane appeared to be struggling to adjust to the pace of the wicket and the pressure told when he tried to go after Bipul Sharma but could only find Siddharth Kaul at mid on. His young teammate, however, had already started signalling his intent as he hit Mohammed Siraj for 13 runs before following it up by taking 18 off Siddharth Kaul. Not willing to risk too much, Pune slowed the tempo of the game and started rotating the strike to negate the impact of Rashid Khan. At the midway point, the home side found themselves right on track with 83 runs on the board and nine wickets in hand.

MS Dhoni wins it like its 2011

It was the ever reliable Rashid Khan who brought his side back into the game by dismissing the Pune captain. The Afghan teenager then sent the brilliant Tripathi back to the dressing room with a brilliant piece of fielding off his own bowling as he was the quickest to react when Pune tried to steal a single. His movement to the ball was rapid and his throw was dead accurate and unfortunately for the Pune opener he was well short of his crease. MS Dhoni joined the action and looked more like his usual self, scoring slowly at first before coming up with the big shots to take Pune to 47 required off the last three overs. It was Dhoni who took the match away from the champions as he scored 17 off Siraj’s over and 19 off death over specialist Bhuvneshwar to swing the game in Pune's favour. Needing just 11 off the last over, Hyderabad had a great chance to get back into the game when Manoj Tiwary was dropped on the boundary by Rashid Khan, who also gave away a boundary while doing so. It was only fitting that Dhoni was the player who finished things off with a boundary, securing a second consecutive win for the PUne team with a ball to spare.