XtraTime Web Desk: The Indian Premier League (IPL) had a new winner in Sunrisers Hyderabad four years back on this day. The Orange Army edged past Royal Challengers Bangalore by 8 runs in a tense contest at the Chinnaswamy stadium in Bengaluru. Led by captain David Warner (69 off 38 balls) and an all round display from Ben Cutting helped the franchise from Hyderabad to its maiden IPL title.
Both Sunrisers Hyderabad and Royal Challengers Bangalore finished the group stages with 16 points each from 14 matches. RCB with a better run rate were placed second in points table. Hyderaba defeated Kolkata Knight Riders and Gujarat Lions in the playoffs to qualify for the final. RCB, on the other hand defeated the Lions to reach the final for the second time.
In the summit clash, Sunrisers captain David Warner won the toss and opted to bat first. Together with Shikhar Dhawan, Warner gave Sunrisers a blazing start, scoring 59 runs from the Powerplay. Dhawan was the first to depart as he top edged a Chahal delivery to Chris Jordan for 28 runs.
Warner was unperturbed at the other end scoring freely. The Aussie opener brought up his fifty off only 24 balls that included five hits to the fence and three big sixes. \ Sunrisers reached 100 in the 11th over with eight wickets in hand. Trying to step up the run rate Warner slashed a short delivery outside off stumps, to be caught by Iqbal Abdullah at third man. The SRH captain before leaving back to the pavilion scored 69 runs off 38 balls. The left hander hit 8 fours and 3 sixes. Yuvraj Singh too played a cameo, scoring 38 off only 23 balls. The southpaw hit four boundaries and two huge six in his innings. But the real impetus to the Sunrisers innings came towards the end from Ben Cutting. The Aussie took 24 runs from his compatriot Shane Watson in the last over to take the Sunrisers total past 200. The Orange Army ended scoring 208/7 in 20 overs.
Royal Challengers Bangalore responded impressively with the opening pair of Virat Kohli and Chris Gayle stitching a partnership of 114 runs for the first wicket. Ben Cutting gave Sunrisers the first breakthrough, getting the dangerous looking Gayle caught at third man by Bipul Sharma for 76(38). The Universe Boss struck 4 boundaries and 8 sixes in his whirlwind knock.
RCB captain was the next to depart as he was cleaned up by Barinder Sran for 54(35) with the score reading 140/2 from 12.5 overs. Bipul Sharma gave his team a huge breakthrough by picking AB de Villiers for only 5 runs to see RCB reduced to 148/3 from 13.5 overs. The home team batting fell apart after the dismissal of De Villiers .With Royal Challengers needing 18 off the final over, Bhuvneshwar Kumar conceded only nine to help Sunrisers seal their maiden IPL title