After seven defeats interspersed by three wins, Sunrisers Hyderabad gave a performance that their head coach Daniel Vettori called their best of the season.
Pushed to the brink of elimination, Sunrisers needed to win Monday night's clash with Delhi Capitals. Playing with their backs to the wall, they virtually set themselves for victory by restricting Delhi Capitals to a paltry 133/7 in 20 overs.
But fate had other ideas and intervened cruelly as incessant rain before the start of Sunrisers Hyderabad's innings forced the match to be abandoned without a result. Both teams had to settle for a point each, thus knocking SRH out of playoffs contention, joining Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals as the third team to crash out.
I think it was a really good performance, probably our best, best bowling and fielding performance of the tournament so far. And it's something that we really talked long and hard about in training and the meeting. So, to come out there and start so well. Yeah, it's a very good performance. Obviously, it's disappointing.
"We came in with high hopes but we just haven't been consistent enough with our performances, just not been able to put complete performances together and today was the start of a complete performance. So it's frustrating that we couldn't finish it. But that's cricket," said Vettori.
SRH captain Pat Cummins came up with his best bowling effort of the season, claiming 3-19 in four wickets. Opting to bowl first, Cummins struck with the very first ball of the match, getting Karun Nair to edge back to Ishan Kishan with a back-of-a-length delivery in the corridor that seamed away just enough to find the outside edge.
Cummins returned in his next over to outfox Faf du Plessis, adjusting his length to an advancing batter, who was forced to swat at the ball but could only bottom-edge to the keeper.
Cummins then dismissed Abishek Porel, inducing a soft leading edge off a ball that held up slightly on the surface, Kishan claimed his third catch of the evening, leaving Delhi Capitals gasping at 19 for 3.
They could not recover from that and were soon down to 62/6 as K.L. Rahul (10), Axar Patel (6), and Vipraj Nigam (18) got out in quick succession. Tristan Stubbs struck 41 not out off 36 balls and Ashutosh Sharma hammered 41 off 26 balls to take past 100 and they eventually ended the 20 overs with 133/7.
But in the end, their effort ended in disappointment as rain played spoilsport.
Brief Scores: Delhi Capitals 133/7 in 20 overs (Ashutosh Sharma 41, Tristan Stubbs 41; Pat Cummins 3-19, Jaydev Unadkat 1-13) vs Sunrisers Hyderabad. Match abandoned due to rain