Sunrisers Hyderabad CEO Kavya Maran was ecstatic after her side defeated Punjab Kings by four wickets in the 69th match of IPL 2024 at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium in Hyderabad.
Pat Cummins' side moved to No.2 with this win on the points table and will now hope that Kolkata Knight Riders beat Rajasthan Royals as they will play Qualifier 1 and will have two chances of qualifying in the final.
Kavya was happy with the result and could be seen clapping with Sunrisers Hyderabad's fans.
Kaviya, who is the daughter of Sunrisers Hyderabad owner Kalanithi Maran, is regularly seen in the stands while supporting her team.
Regarding the game, SRH chased down 215 in the last over. In the chase, they lost Travis Head off the very first ball, but fifty from Abhishek Sharma (66) and quick runs from Rahul Tripathi (33), Heinrich Klaasen (42) and Nitish Reddy (37) meant that they reached the target easily.
Batting first, Punjab got a brilliant start as the opening pair of Prabhsimarn Singh and Atharva Tiade put on 97. While Taide (46) missed his fifty, Prabhsimran (71) completed it.
Rilee Rossouw (49) continued to attack before Hyderabad made a mini comeback in overs 16-19 with Shashank Singh and Ashutosh Sharma failing together in a rare game. Jitesh Sharma (32*) though made the most of the 20th over and pushed the Punjab score beyond 200.
It must be noted that the four teams have been confirmed that will feature in the IPL 2024 playoffs after Royal Challengers Bengaluru defeated Chennai Super Kings by 27 runs in a virtual knockout fixture.
RCB finished the round stage with 14 points and will now play Eliminator against Rajasthan Royals or Sunrisers Hyderabad.
Meanwhile, Kolkata Knight Riders have been booked to play Qualifier 1 after they bagged 19 points in the 13 games.
SRH will now hope KKR beat RR in the second game of the day or rain washes out. If this happens, they will play KKR in Qualifier 1 on May 21.