Heinrich Klaasen hit a fighting half-century for the Sunrisers Hyderabad in their 34-run loss to the Gujarat Titans in the IPL on Monday.
The South African scored 64 off 44 balls (four fours, three sixes) to take his tally for this year’s IPL to 326 runs in 10 matches at an average of 46.57 and a strike rate of 172.48.
Needing 189 to win, Hyderabad finished on 154-9. Captain Aiden Markram made 10, while Mohammed Shami and Mohit Sharma both took four wickets.
Earlier, Gujarat posted 188-9 thanks to 101 off 58 balls from Shubman Gill, who put on a 147-run stand with Sai Sudarshan (47). David Miller made seven, while Marco Jansen took 1-39 in four overs.
Gujarat lost Wriddhiman Saha, for a duck, on the third ball of the match but Gill hit Fazalhaq Farooqi for four straight boundaries to set the pace.
Gill, who jumped to second in the batting charts with 576 runs behind Bangalore captain Faf du Plessis (631), smashed 13 fours and a six and Sudarshan was also punishing in his 36-ball stay.
Hyderabad hit back with wickets and despite Gill’s century in 56 balls, Gujarat managed just 34 runs in the last five overs and lost seven wickets.
The bowlers did well to check Gujarat’s total, which looked like going over 200, as seam bowler Bhuvneshwar Kumar returned figures of 5-30 but the efforts were vain.
Hyderabad were never in the chase after they fell to 12-3 with Shami taking two and further slipped to 59-7.
Klaasen then smashed 64 and put on 68 runs with Kumar, who made 27, but the stand only reduced their margin of defeat.
© Agence France-Presse
