Williamson, Holder help SRH beat RCB in Eliminator, final hopes alive

SunRisers Hyderabad kept their finals hope alive after defeating Royal Challengers Bangalore by six-wicket in the Eliminator here at Sheikh Zayed Stadium on Friday.

SRH will now face Delhi Capitals in Qualifier 2 here on Sunday (November 8). The winner of that match will play the summit clash against Mumbai Indians. SRH needed 18 runs in the last two overs. Mohammed Siraj just gave nine runs in his penultimate over. Navdeep Saini had nine runs to defend in the last over of the match which he failed to as Hyderabad won the game with two balls to spare.

Chasing a moderate target of 132, SRH had the worst possible start as opener Shreevats Goswami (0) lost his wicket in the first over off Mohammed Siraj.

Manish Pandey joined David Warner in the middle and added 42-run for the second wicket. The latter departed after playing a knock of 17 runs.

Kane Williamson came in to bat at number four. In the ninth over, spinner Adam Zampa bagged Pandey (24) and sent back top-three batsmen of Hyderabad.

Priyam Garg and Williamson then had a brief 12-run stand for the fourth wicket. Garg failed to play a big inning for the side and was dismissed at seven runs by Yuzvendra Chahal.

All-rounder Jason Holder and Williamson then had a solid unbeaten partnership of 65-run to put their side over the line. On the other hand, Holder played a supporting knock of 24* runs off 20 balls.

For RCB, Siraj bagged two wickets while Adam Zampa and Yuzvendra Chahal scalped one wicket each.

Earlier, Holder and T Natarajan starred with the ball as Sunrisers Hyderabad restricted RCB to 131/7 in the allotted 20 overs.

Holder picked three while Natarajan scalped two wickets as no batsmen except AB de Villiers got going for RCB.

Put in to bat first, RCB suffered an early jolt as skipper Virat Kohli was dismissed in the very second over by Jason Holder. RCB’s start worsened as Holder dismissed Devdutt Padikkal in the fourth over. In the end, RCB were only able to score 131 runs in their allotted 20 overs.

Brief scores: RCB 131/7 (Aaron Finch 32, AB de Villiers 56, Jason Holder 25-3, T Natarajan 33-2) lost to SRH 132/4 (Kane Williamson 50*, Jason Holder 24*, Mohammed Siraj 2-28) by six wickets..