Spinners help Bengaluru defeat Hyderabad

Indian spinners Karn Sharma and Swapnil Singh took four key wickets to help IPL’s lowest-ranked Royal Challengers Bengaluru defeat Sunrisers Hyderabad by 35 runs in Hyderabad on Thursday.

Earlier, Faf du Plessis-led RCB won the toss and scored a par 206-7, setting a 207 run target for Hyderabad’s in-form batting unit which has already broken some IPL batting records this season.

Hyderabad could only score 171-8 as RCB registered only their second win in nine games and are still languishing at the bottom of the 10-team table.

Indian batting superstar Virat Kohli hit a slow 43-ball 51 and stitched a 48-run opening partnership with Plessis, who fell after hitting 12-ball 25.

England’s Will Jacks (6) fell early before Rajat Patidar’s explosive 20-ball 50 propelled Bengaluru to 130 in the 13th over, when the rookie batter fell to Indian veteran pacer Jaydev Unadkat.

Kohli fell in the 15th over leaving RCB reeling at 140-4 as their innings lost some momentum and wickets of Mahipal Lomror (7) and Dinesh Karthik (11) by the 19th over.

Australia’s star all-rounder Cameron Green hit an unbeaten 20-ball 37 to provide a final flourish as Unadkat (3-30) and T Natarajan (2-39) finished with five wickets between them.

Hyderabad’s explosive openers, Australia’s Travis Head and Indian rookie Abhishek Sharma, failed to build a partnership Thursday.

Head (1) fell in the very first over of the chase to spinner Jacks and Sharma hit 13-ball 31 before he fell in the fourth over to leave Sunrisers at 2-37.

Bengaluru’s Karn and Swapnil took three key middle-order wickets — Aiden Markram (7), Nitish Kumar Reddy (13), and Heinrich Klaasen (7) — to leave Hyderabad at 5-69 in the eighth over of the chase.

Hyderabad skipper Pat Cummins, who hit 15-ball 31 with three sixes, provided some lower-order flourish before dismissal to national teammate Green, who bowled two tight overs for 12 runs and two wickets.

Hyderabad is still comfortably placed on the third spot in the IPL table and Cummins said that he “won’t dwell on this one too much”.

Winning captain Plessis said that their team had “been close for a while but you need to win matches to get confidence in the group”.

“Massive win for us. When you’re not winning it does affect you mentally, it does affect your confidence,” he added.

“You can’t speak confidence into the group, you can’t fake confidence into the group.”