Klaasen, Kishan carry SRH to top of the table

Sunrisers Hyderabad batted big, took their catches and used smart variations to hand Punjab Kings their third successive defeat of the season. All five of the SRH batters who got to the middle scored at a strike rate of over 160, with Heinrich Klaasen and Ishan Kishan cracking half-centuries. Cooper Connolly got to a 57-ball century in the final over of the chase but PBKS fell well short to squander their top spot on the points table. With that, SRH have now beaten a Punjab team in nine consecutive IPL fixtures in Hyderabad since 2014.

Brief Scores: Sunrisers Hyderabad 235/4 in 20 overs (Heinrich Klaasen 69, Ishan Kishan 55, Travis Head 38, Abhishek Sharma 35; Yuzvendra Chahal 1-32) beat Punjab Kings 202/7 in 20 overs (Cooper Connolly 107*; Pat Cummins 2-34, Eshan Malinga 1-36) by 33 runs.

A brief deja-vu for Punjab?

Shreyas Iyer looked at the barren Hyderabad pitch and the scorecard from this fixture last year, and said I'll bowl first. It didn't matter to Abhishek Sharma who began once again with the ferocity of that game. Only this time, it was short-lived as Lockie Ferguson got him to mistime after he belted four sixes in his first 12 balls. Travis Head took over and swung his bat around until the end of the Powerplay, taking them to 79/1 in 6 overs.

More catching (and stumping) woes

PBKS boundary riders just cannot catch a break.. and a ball. Cooper Connolly and Ferguson let two of them slip right through their fingers to give Ishan Kishan a couple of chances. Heinrich Klaasen also lived a charmed life as Shashank Singh was once again guilty of dropping an absolute sitter. As many as seven catches have been dropped off Yuzvendra Chahal's bowling this season, sullying the good start to the middle-overs he offered his team.

Shreyas Iyer quickly course-corrected after holding him back against GT because of the presence of two left-handed batters, and unleashed him right after the Powerplay. Chahal responded by halting Head in his tracks with a tossed up googly that the Aussie miscued, and was incidentally caught at the long on boundary.

The repercussions of the fumbles that followed were massive. SRH already had 118/1 in 10 overs, but the pair found a higher gear as they went after Vijaykumar Vyshak. The pacer conceded four sixes – one to Klaasen, three successive to Kishan – across two overs. Between them was a Marco Jansen over worth 13 runs where Klaasen hit one six.

How costly were the three drops?

Kishan was dropped on 9 and 18. He got a 32-ball 55. Klaasen was dropped on 9 and he finished with 69 off 43. Kishan fell just before the death overs but the South African pushed on to consolidate two good phases of batting. He found company in Nitish Reddy, who returned after missing the last game with illness, and chanced his arms effectively. Chahal completed his spell with an eight-run over in the 16th but Klaasen and Reddy tonked 17, 13, 10 and 13 of the last four overs to go well past 200.

An early lesson in efficiency

How do you restrict a free-spirited top-order at a venue like this? By taking your high catches, say SRH. Pat Cummins set up Priyansh Arya in the first over with a field change and a neat bluff, but the wicket was down to how well Eshan Malinga covered ground and took a diving catch at deep square leg. Nitish Reddy got the ball to shape away from Prabhsimran Singh in the second over and induced a leading edge, but that wicket too was courtesy a sharp effort on the field from the skipper as he ran backwards from cover, even stumbled and yet completed a catch. In the fourth over, Malinga and Cummins combined again to remove Shreyas Iyer – who skied a cutter from the Sri Lankan and the SRH captain held on to a simple catch.

Connolly attempts amends… in vain

The game see-sawed in the middle-overs but despite the Australian's swinging willow, it sided with the hosts. He and Marcus Stoinis attempted to get a move on, but left-arm wrist spinner Shivang Kumar got the latter to nick a wrong 'un behind to Ishan Kishan in the seventh over. For 25 deliveries post the dismissal, PBKS couldn't get a four or a six. Connolly then went after Harsh Dubey in a 17-run 10th over as PBKS got to the halfway stage at 91/4. Suryansh Shedge then picked Shivang apart in the 11th over, seeing through his googlies and smashing two sixes and a four.

After two overs of 35 runs, Cummins brought himself back and had Shedge caught in the deep. It brought Shashank Singh to the crease, who too owed his team a few runs, but mistimed a pull to Nitish at deep mid-wicket who nearly fumbled it away. Wickets fell and the asking rate skyrocketed, but Connolly kept going, hitting seven fours and eight sixes on his way to a maiden T20 hundred that he got to in the final over. But that the next best batting effort for PBKS was Stoinis's 28 summed up their night, and wrapped up the result.

What worked for SRH? Pace off!

Sakib and Malinga repeatedly bowled slower bouncers and cutters to untether PBKS from the chase. At the toss, Cummins rightly expected dew to not come in and for the surface to slow down as the game progressed. Only Lockie Ferguson among the PBKS bowlers resorted to them and briefly cut out SRH's stroke-making, while SRH did it far more effectively. Connolly saw through a few them, but the others couldn't match that.

Sunrisers Hyderabad head to Ahmedabad for a game against Gujarat Titans on May 12. PBKS will play the first of their three successive matches at the picturesque Dharamsala, hosting DC on May 11.