Sunrisers Hyderabad continued their impressive run of defending low-scores as they managed to defend only 151 runs at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium, Jaipur. The venue is known as the fortress for Rajasthan and they have an impressive record there but that did not help them tonight. Despite the captain, Ajinkya Rahane battling from one end, Royals batsmen failed to complement him.
Chasing 152, Rajasthan Royals started confidently with Rahane playing the role of sheet anchor. RR lost Rahul Tripathi early as he was bowled by Sandeep Sharma. Sanju Samson who had an incredible start to the IPL 2018 looked set to play another match-winning inning. The duo of Samson-Rahane put on 59 runs for the second wicket before Sanju was out.
Another quick failure saw Ben Stokes depart with no runs on the board and he was bowled by Yusuf Pathan. Other Englishman, Jos Buttler also faced another failure and the debutant Mahipal Lomror arrived at the crease. The turning point of the match was the 19th Over bowled by Siddarth Kaul.
Before Kaul started his over, Rajasthan Royals needed 27 runs from 12 balls, gettable in T20 cricket. The first ball by Kaul was a knuckleball on which Rahane could score only one. Lomror smacked the next ball straight for a six, only for it to be stopped by Manish Pandey. He stopped a definite six and kept SRH alive.
Next ball by Kaul was a wide outside off-stump, Lomror edged it and Saha grabbed the easy catch. The balance tilted in the favor of SRH. K Gowtham, the hero of the last match, was now on strike. Kaul gave him only a single and kept Rahane down to only two runs in the next two balls.
The penultimate over by Siddarth Kaul was the lethal blow. He conceded only six runs and took one wicket. RR going into the last over needed 21 runs. The task was next to impossible and they lost by 11 runs. SRH have now defended three low totals consecutively.