IPL 2016: Bhuvneshwar, Warner star as Sunrisers halt Lions' victory run

NEW DELHI: Skipper David Warner made a mockery of the paltry 136-run chase, putting on an unbroken opening-wicket stand with Shikhar Dhawan, as Sunrisers Hyderabad thrashed Gujarat Lions - who lost their first match of the season - by ten wickets to register their second successive win in the ninth edition of the Indian Premier League at the Saurashtra Cricket Association Stadium in Rajkot on Thursday.
Warner, who scored his 26th IPL fifty off 29 balls and his second in a row, led from the front as he played an unbeaten knock of 74 off 48 balls that included nine fours. Dhawan, who was struggling for form, also got his lost touch back as he scored a disciplined 40-ball half-century to guide his team. Dhawan hit five boundaries in his 41-ball 53 knock.
Chasing 136, Sunrisers cantered home in emphatic fashion with 31 balls to spare and ten wickets in hand and ended Lions three-match consecutive victory run. For Lions, Praveen Kumar leaked 31 runs in his two overs while Dwyane Bravo gave away 26 runs in his three overs.
Man of the match Bhuvneshwar Kumar (4/29) and Mustafizur Rahman (1/19) shared five wickets between them to enable Sunrisers Hyderabad restrict Gujarat Lions to 135/8 despite fighting half-century by Lions skipper Suresh Raina, who became the first Indian to cross 6000-run mark in T20s, in the 15th match of the IPL 9.
Warner started the chase by hitting Dale Steyn, who was playing his first match of the season, with two fours in the very first over and then clobbered seamer Praveen Kumar with three mouth-watering boundaries in the fourth. Warner further hit two consecutive fours to Raina as Sunrisers reached 63/0 after six overs of Powerplay in comparison to Lions' 50/1. Sunrisers raced to 96/0 after 10 overs while Lions were 74/3 at the halfway mark.
For Lions, skipper Raina played a gritty knock of 75 off 51 balls that included nine boundaries and surprisingly not a single hit over the park. Raina and Brendon McCullum added crucial 56 runs for the second wicket to build up the Lions innings before McCullum was dismissed by Bipul Sharma for 18 that came in 17 balls with the help of one four and a lone six.
After being put into bat, the struggle of Lions batsmen against quality bowling attack was quite visible as they could only score 11 fours and one six in their innings. Also, only three batsmen managed to cross double-figure mark.
Sunrisers' bowlers rose to the occasion as they gave away only 30 runs between 10 and 15 overs and 31 runs in the next five to break their opponent's back. Mustafizur bowled a superb 19th over, conceding only four runs to finish with the figures of 1/19 while Bhuvneshwar picked up three wickets in the form of Raina, Akshdeep Nath and Steyn in the last over of the innings.
Paceman Bhuvneshwar gave the home team a dream start after he cleaned up in-form Aaron Finch, who came in to this match on the back of three successive match-winning fifties, off the fourth ball of the first over. Bhuvneshwar unleashed perfect inswingers in his first three deliveries to shake Finch a bit. But Finch, who didn't move his feet at all, was finally undone by another vicious inswinger that darted in sharply to hit the stumps. Bhuvneshwar said after the innings that he kept that nagging line deliberately because Finch is not comfortable against the inswinging deliveries.
Mustafizur, who impressed everyone in his debut season, replaced Barinder Sran in the fourth over and gave away just 2 runs in his first over but was surprisingly removed from the attack by Warner. Raina, who held the other end quite strongly, hits his 34th T20 fifty off 34 balls. Barinder, who gave away 24 runs in his first two-over spell, returned to dismiss dangerous Bravo. Mustafizur was brought back into the attack in the 15th over and he conceded only nine runs and scalped a rusty Ravindra Jadeja, who came back in to the team after his wedding, in his next over to dash any hopes of the late charge by the home team.
Brief Scores: Sunrisers Hyderabad (Warner 74*, Dhawan 53*) beat Gujarat Lions (Raina 75; Bhuvneshwar 4/29, Mustafizur 1/19) by ten wickets