Thisara Perera brought out the big guns in the final moments to propel the Sunrisers Hyderabad to a five-wicket win over the Kings XI Punjab in IPL 2013.
Needing 124 for a win, after the Sunrisers' bowlers came to the party yet again, the Hyderabad franchise eked their way to the total, before some fireworks from Perera (23 in 11) at the end helped the home side to a comfortable win with seven balls to spare.
The win at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium saw the Sunrisers climb to the top of the ever-changing points table with their fifth win in seven games, while Kings XI crashed to their third defeat in five.
The chase did not begin on a good note for the Sunrisers, with Quinton De Kock seeing his middle stump knocked off the ground by Praveen Kumar off jut the fourth delivery of the innings, with the Sunrisers yet to score a single run.
Hanuma Vihari, who has been impressive in this year's IPL, and Akshath Reddy got together and allied for a nice little partnership of 48 runs from just 7.1 overs to send the home side on their way to a victory.
Reddy unnecessarily threw away his wicket, though, going for a loft over mid-off, only for Azhar Mahmood to take a nice one-handed grab, with Manpreet Singh Gony, who played for the Deccan Chargers last year, picking up the wicket.
Vihari (46, 39b, 5x4) was going along nicely, even after the wicket of Reddy, with skipper White giving him good company at the other end. However, the youngster's inexperience told as he played a lofted cover drive straight to David Hussey off a wide delivery from Piyush Chawla.
The onus was now on White to see his side through till the end, and after a few overs of milking the singles, the Australian was castled by Gony off a ball that kept a little low, bringing Kings XI right back into the game.
Mahmood took the wicket of Biplab Samantray soon after in the 17th over, with the right-hander given lbw for 10.
Needing 18 runs from the last two overs, Thisara Perera smashed the first ball from Mahmood for a six over long-on, before cracking one even longer off the fourth ball to take his team to within just three runs of the target.
Perera (23, 11b, 3x6), not bothering about taking singles, finished things of with aplomb courtesy another bomber as the Sunrisers celebrated a deserved win.
In the first innings, the Sunrisers bowling performed brilliantly again, restricting Kings XI to a below par score.
The pitch was low and slow, but still there were not too many demons to keep Kings XI reaching at least the 140 mark.
Part-time spinner Hanuma Vihari opened the bowling for the Sunrisers and kept things tight, conceding just two runs. After a typically efficient second over from Dale Steyn, Mandeep Singh (10) lost his wicket in the next, top-edging a pull shot off Ishant Sharma, with wicketkeeper Quinton De Kock completing the catch.
Gilchrist looked determined to make something of his innings this time around, and the fifth over from Thisara Perera gave everyone hope of seeing the Aussie great rolling back the years.
The Kings XI skipper smashed Perera for three fours in four balls, as the southpaw looked to guide his side to a big total.
However, it proved to be a bit of a false dawn, as Gilchrist (26, 25b, 4x4) holed out to Ishant Sharma at deep midwicket, getting caught off a delivery from Karan Sharma that spun a little more than he expected.
Paul Valthaty's struggle - he could manage just six runs in 17 balls -- in the middle ended two balls later, with Karan Sharma (two for 19) again inducing a poor shot from the batsman.
Piyush Chawla, sent in early, to counter-attack the leg spinners Karan Sharma and Amit Mishra, played a nice little quickfire 23 (15b, 1x4, 2x6), but Kings XI's woes began once the left-hander ran himself out.
From 88 for three, Kings XI crashed to 115 for nine, with Mishra, who had four wickets in five balls in the last game against Pune Warriors, including a hat-trick, again doing the damage in the latter part of the innings. The leg-spinner picked up two wickets in three balls, which was sandwiched by a run out, which interestingly, meant a hat-trick of wickets for the team.
Dimitri Mascarenhas and Praveen Kumar saw off the last couple of overs to nudge their side to 123.
