Chandigarh, India

The Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024 on Tuesday (April 9) witnessed yet another close encounter as Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) beat Punjab Kings (PBKS) to register their first away win of the season. The narrow two-run win was engineered by an unfamiliar name, Nitish Reddy as he played a match-winning knock at Chandigarh’s Mullanpur. After the match, SRH skipper Pat Cummins was full of praise for Reddy with the South Indian side now having three wins on the board in IPL 2024.

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Cummins in awe of Nitish

"He was awesome," Cummins said. "Straight to the top of the order [in this game], was fantastic in the field, bowled three overs too. To get us to 180 off his bat, it was amazing."

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It was not an easy task for Nitish as he had to fight for his place before playing the match-winning 64-run knock off just 37 deliveries. With Mayank Agarwal fit and Abhishek Sharma getting enough credit to open after his blistering 37 off 12 against Chennai Super Kings (CSK), Nitish had to earn the trust of the management. The management took a gamble and decided to bench Mayank against his former side Punjab and instead used Nitish at No.4.

A just 20, the local lad has already earned huge praise from the skipper and team management. He also ended with figures of 33/1 in his three overs, showcasing his all-rounder skill. He will try to now become an important part of the team roster as SRH aim to end their eight-year drought for the IPL title. The South Indian side last won the IPL title under David Warner in 2016 and have since gone silent.

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What happened in the match?

In a grandstand finish needing 29 runs to win the final over, PBKS almost pulled the game out of SRH’s reach. Shashank Singh (unbeaten 46) and Ashutosh Sharma (unbeaten 33) took PBKS close to winning and scored 26 runs in the final over. However, they could not deliver the end product as PBKS lost their first home match of the season.

SRH next take on Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) and return to the south of India to face the IPL 2024 strugglers. The contest will be played on Monday at the M.Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru.

SRH next five matches

RCB vs SRH, April 15

DC vs SRH, April 20

SRH vs RCB, April 25

CSK vs SRH, April 28

SRH vs RR, April 6