Defending Champions Sunrisers Hyderabad beat Kings XI Punjab in a thrilling encounter on Monday. Hyderabad won by five runs due to the heroics of their ace pacer Bhuvneshwar Kumar, who picked five wickets for 19 runs. However, the match went down to the wire thanks to a brilliant knock of 95 in 50 balls by Punjab’s Manan Vohra in the chase of 160.

“My heart is still pounding,” said Kumar after the match. “T20 is a game where you must expect the unexpected. I’ve been doing this job for Sunrisers and I knew I had to bowl the 19th over. I’m used to it and I believed in myself.”

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Kumar all but sealed the match for his team in the penultimate over of the innings, when a yorker-length delivery trapped Vohra leg-before. “When I bowled the 16th or 17th over, I knew he [Vohra] was in good nick,” Bhuvneshwar said. “I wasn’t worried but wanted to make a plan instead. [SRH captain David] Warner and I planned to bowl straight yorkers and it worked.”

Warner was a happy man after his team’s third win in five matches, and heaped praise on Kumar for his brilliant temperament in the death overs. “Credit to Manan for playing like that,” Warner said. “Credit to Bhuvi too, he was unbelievable. Manan made it look easy when he cleared the ropes. He had to dig in for his team. Unfortunately, only one team can win. It’s great to have Bhuvi in the shed at the back end and he executed perfectly.”

‘Criminal’ to lose after Vohra’s knock

Losing captain Glenn Maxwell said it was “criminal” for Punjab to have lost the match after Vohra’s knock. “It was an outstanding game, made by a great innings by Vohra,” said Maxwell. “Unfortunately, he didn’t have help from the rest of us. It was definitely chaseable. We did well in the middle with the ball but let it slip in the back end. To play an innings like that in a losing cause is criminal. He’s a superstar. A big score like that was around the corner for him.”

Maxwell also praised Kumar for his spell. “We knew Bhuvi was going to swing it around a bit,” he said. “We didn’t expect the wicket to be so up and down, and he bowled good lengths. We had planned for him and Rashid, but giving seven wickets to them probably did us in. We wanted to take off and get 60 in the Powerplay, but it didn’t come off.”