Veteran pacer
Bhuvneshwar Kumar
delivered a remarkable final over, sealing a nail-biting victory for Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) against the Rajasthan Royals (RR) by a mere one run in a thrilling last-ball encounter in the Indian Premier League (IPL) on Thursday.
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Rejuvenating their IPL playoff aspirations, Sunrisers' dramatic win saw Bhuvneshwar (3/41) dismissing Rovman Powell (27) lbw with a full toss, as RR finished at 200/7 in pursuit of SRH's 201/3.
After the match, Bhuvneshwar admitted that he was nervous and clueless as he ran in to deliver the final over, with RR needing 12 runs in 6 balls.
"Honestly, jab 19th over chal raha tha, mai nervous tha. Jab ball haath mei aayi, tab bhi thoughtless tha (I was nervous when the 19th over was on and thoughtless when I had the ball in hand)," said Bhuvi in a video on the IPL website.
Trying for a yorker, Bhuvneshwar erred and delivered a full toss on the final ball of the match. But Powell missed and the ball hit his pads right in front of the stumps.
"Intention was not to take a wicket as they needed two runs, one to tie the match," Bhuvneshwar added. "Aim was to tie the game, so that it goes to the Super over, which will give us a chance."
The 34-year-old pacer said sometimes good balls don't fetch you wickets and sometimes you get it off a full toss.
"Like you say in cricket that sometimes you don't get wickets off good balls, while a full toss gets you one (at other times). So I think we were lucky enough to get the wicket," he added.
SRH top-scorer
Nitish Reddy
too was hoping that the game went to Super Over.
"It was a good match. I didn't except Bhuvi bhai will take a wicket (off the last ball), but I was expecting a Super Over," said Nitish, who scored 76 not out off 42 balls.
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Sunrisers were able to post a total in excess of 200 thanks to explosive knock from Nitish, Travis Head's 58 off 44 balls and Heinrich Klassen's unbeaten 42 off 19 balls.
Bhuvneshwar then removed Jos Buttler and Sanju Samson for ducks in his opening over to leave RR reeling at 1 for 2.
However, youngsters Yashasvi Jaiswal (67) and Riyan Parag (77) came up with counterattacking fifties on way to a massive 134-run partnership to put the run-chase back on track.
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