Fast bowler Umran Malik stars as Hyderabad beat Punjab by 7 wickets for a fourth straight win

Speedster Umran Malik returned figures of 4-28 including a maiden 20th over to help Sunrisers Hyderabad to their fourth straight Indian Premier League (IPL) win as they beat Punjab Kings by seven wickets on Sunday.

Malik, whose deliveries reached 152kph during his four-over spell, finished with 4-28. Punjab were dismissed for 151 in 20 overs after Hyderabad skipper Kane Williamson won the toss and elected to field. Hyderabad lost Williamson cheaply in the fourth over, but its middle-order batted solidly to finish on 152-3 in 18.5 overs for its fourth successive successful chase in the tournament.

Hyderabad joined Royal Challengers Bangalore, Lucknow Super Giants and Gujarat Titans at the top of the table with eight points.

"We were 30-40 runs short and lost too many early wickets which put us behind the game,” Punjab skipper Shikhar Dhawan said. "The early wickets meant we had to hold wickets and that’s where we had to mold our game. There was a middle-order recovery but the early wickets cost us.”

Aiden Markram made 41 not out off 27 balls and Nicholas Pooran scored a sedate 35 not out in an unbroken fourth-wicket stand of 75 runs for Hyderabad and handed Punjab its third loss from six games.

Leg-spinner Rahul Chahar bowled well in the middle overs for his 2-28 and had both Rahul Tripathi (34) and Abhishek Sharma (31) caught in the deep. But Pooran and Markram held firm against Kagiso Rabada in the death overs to see their team through without drama.

Earlier, Punjab’s top-order stuttered in the first half of its innings with Dhawan (8) top-edging Bhuvneshwar Kumar to mid-on in the third over.

Jonny Bairstow (12) was trapped leg before wicket by left-arm spinner Jagadeesha Suchith and Malik made it 61-4 with a return catch of Jitesh Sharma (11), who miscued a pull shot against pace.

Liam Livingstone (60 off 33) and Shahrukh Khan (26) revived the innings with a 71-run stand but Hyderabad made a grand comeback through Malik.

Livingstone hit five fours and four sixes. After he was caught well by a tumbling Williamson in the penultimate over, Malik ran through the tail in a superb last over.

Malik had Odean Smith caught off his own bowling with another brilliant short-pitched delivery off his second ball before hitting the stumps of Rahul Chahar and Vaibhav Arora off the fourth and fifth deliveries of the final over.

Punjab, which started the over at 151-6, couldn’t add a run as No. 11 batter Arshdeep Singh was run out on the final delivery.

Agencies