Rahul Tripathi of Sunrisers Hyderabad plays a shot against Mumbai Indians during their IPL match.

Indian batsman Rahul Tripathi’s 76 and three wickets by speedster Umran Malik helped Sunrisers Hyderabad cling on to their IPL play-off hopes with a narrow win over Mumbai Indians on Tuesday. Tripathi smashed three sixes in his 44-ball knock to guide Hyderabad to 193 for six after being put into bat first at Mumbai’s Wankhede Stadium.

Malik, who kept the speed gun busy and clocked the fastest of the match at 154.8 km/h (95.6 mph), returned figures of 3-23 to restrict Mumbai to 190-7 despite a 18-ball 46 from Tim David. The 2016 champions Hyderabad won by three runs to snap their five-match losing streak and stay eighth in the 10-team table with a slim chance of making the final four.

Rohit Sharma’s Mumbai, the richest and most successful side in Indian Premier League history with five titles but the first to bow out of the play-off race this season, stay bottom of the table with 10 losses.Tripathi put on big partnerships including a 76-run third-wicket stand with West Indies left-hander Nicholas Pooran, a wicketkeeper-batsman, who made a 22-ball 38.

Indian medium-pace bowler Ramandeep Singh attempted to check the Hyderabad surge with twin strikes in one over including Tripathi and South Africa’s Aiden Markram for two. Mumbai bowlers did pull things back and pace bowler Jasprit Bumrah gave away just seven runs in the 20th over and kept Hyderabad to below 200, a score that looked on the cards when Tripathi was batting. Bumrah, called India’s yorker king, bowled Washington Sundar on the final delivery to reach a milestone 250 T20 wickets.

In reply, Rohit, who made 48, and Ishan Kishan put on 95 runs for the opening wicket to raise Mumbai’s hopes of a chase. Sundar denied Rohit a fifty and Malik, a standout performer for Hyderabad this season with 21 wickets, soon took over to rattle the opposition batting. Malik, who hails from the Jammu region of Indian-administered Kashmir, started with a 17-run first over but came back strong with the wickets of Kishan (43), Tilak Verma (8) and Daniel Sams (15). David, an attacking middle-order batsman from Singapore, then smashed T Natarajan for four sixes in a 26-run 18th over to give Hyderabad a scare.

But David was run out and with Mumbai needing 19 off the final 12 balls, Bhuvneshwar Kumar bowled a maiden 19th over and took a wicket to help Hyderabad prevail in the thriller. Meanwhile, despite his first ball dismissal in the team’s previous IPL match against Punjab Kings, at the Dr DY Patil Sports Academy in Mumbai on Monday, Delhi Capitals batter David Warner said that the team has a never-say-die attitude on the field, whether it’s with the ball or bat.

The Australian batter, who has scored 427 runs in 11 matches, added that the team has a hunger and desire to help each other out as we care for the team. Speaking about their performance, Warner said, “The team has a never-say-die attitude. We are fighters and we play to the best of our abilities, whether it’s with the ball or bat. There’s a hunger and desire to help each other out as we care for each other.” Warner made vital contributions in the field during their game against Punjab.

When asked about his scintillating fielding, he said, “There are two facets of the game for me - batting and fielding. I look to stop ones in the ring and take some catches near the boundary. Fortunately, I got one and it was a great result for us. I get a buzz out of fielding and I try to save runs for the bowlers.”

Sarfaraz Khan, who played a blistering knock of 32 runs from 16 balls, enjoyed the role of an opener, “I had never opened before the game against Punjab Kings so I was looking to enjoy the position. “Before I got this opportunity, I had a feeling that I could bat well as an opener and things went according to plan against Punjab.” The batter also motivated the team after their batting innings, “I wouldn’t have been happy if my innings wouldn’t have helped the team win.

Agencies