Luck Index: Fumbling Yusuf Pathan costs Sunrisers Hyderabad the game

In a game of T20 cricket, every small error makes a big difference.

Kings XI Punjab's successful chase off the penultimate delivery against Sunrisers Hyderabad after having quite a few key luck factors go their way proves that. ESPNcricinfo's Luck Index estimates how Kings XI got lucky and that led to their victory.

The most important Luck Event in Kings XI's innings turned out to be the dropped catch of Mayank Agarwal in the 16th over by Yusuf Pathan. According to Luck Index, the drop had an impact of eight runs for Kings XI. Mayank was on 40 off 36 before the drop and after the drop, he scored 15 off seven balls.

The batsmen to follow were David Miller, Sarfaraz Khan and Mandeep Singh. Luck Index takes into account the quality of batsmen, their form and the overs remaining of each opposition bowler, and then estimates the impact of the luck event. In this case, it estimated that had Agarwal gotten out, those seven balls would have been faced by others and they would have scored eight runs fewer than his. Thus, Pathan's drop - a straightforward chance - basically cost Sunrisers the match in the end.

Other key luck events were two misfields in the final over. Just 11 runs were needed. On the first ball, Deepak Hooda's misfield allowed the batsmen to take two runs. And in the end, when two were needed of two, David Warner's fumble at long-on once again allowed two runs.