Mishra hat-trick sinks Pune inches from shore

Sunrisers Hyderabad had defended 126 in their IPL debut against Pune Warriors in Hyderabad. When the return game started this afternoon in Pune, the giant screen at the Sahara Stadium flashed "Revenge". Warriors almost exacted it: they restricted Sunrisers to 119 and then needed 19 off 19 in their chase, with six wickets in hand. Sunrisers used up just 13 of those 19 deliveries to take six wickets, four of them falling to Amit Mishra, who took his third IPL hat-trick, as Warriors imploded in spectacularly inept fashion.

Four of the last six batsmen, including captain Angelo Mathews, fell swinging wildly, something that could be put down to collective brain-fade instead of the benign asking-rate. Three of those batsmen were allrounders - Mitchell Marsh, Abhishek Nayar and Mathews himself. Marsh wanted to hit Dale Steyn out of the ground, Nayar tried it against Thisara Perera and Mathews against Mishra. All three holed out on a pitch Mathews himself had called 'up-and-down' and slow at the toss, suggesting those shots would be mighty difficult to pull off.

A stunned Manish Pandey took a single off the third ball of the 19th over, right after Mishra had dismissed Mathews, and watched in increasing horror as Rahul Sharma was bowled after a missed slog while trying to follow the trail blazed by the allrounders. Bhuvneshwar Kumar played for turn to a googly to depart lbw and Mishra completed the hat-trick, and an unbelievable win, with one more googly, as Ashok Dinda too pushed for a legbreak. Mishra's figures read 4-0-19-4 and came after his 30 off 24 had stretched Sunrisers to 119 for 8 from 44 for 6. Interestingly, Sunrisers had used up all their bowlers except their legspinners until the last two overs

Warriors were in the game throughout except for those final moments of madness. Bhuvneshwar Kumar moved it in and out and ran through the Sunrisers top order to leave them gasping at 17 for 4, including the wicket of stand-in captain Cameron White for a golden duck.

Biplab Samantray and Karan Sharma were unlikely candidates to fight back. Samantray batted sensibly to make a run-a-ball 37 before holing out to long off. Perera came in after Karan's wicket and it was expected he would resist, too. But he edged behind for 2, trying to drive almost every ball he faced.

It was left to Mishra to make vital runs once more. He came in after Perera was dismissed in the 11th over and hung around till the last, pushing Sunrisers well beyond 100 along with Ashish Reddy. Twenty-six came off the last two overs of the innings bowled by Mathews and Dinda.

Robin Uthappa and Aaron Finch came hard at Sunrisers, their opening stand worth 38 in just over four overs. Steyn was taken for 22 in his first two overs, but the way the openers fell was a peek into the way the sand castle would crumble later. Uthappa flicked Perera straight to deep square leg and Finch punched him to backward point off successive deliveries.

The size of the target and the pace of the start meant Warriors were always in front until the flood of wickets in the penultimate over. Mishra had been Player of the Match in Hyderabad, too, with 3 for 19.