Klaasen and Abhishek lift SRH to 194 before Malinga closes out a 10-run win over CSK in Hyderabad
Sunrisers Hyderabad have finally won a home game worth shouting about, edging out Chennai Super Kings by 10 runs at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium on a night when both sides spent the entire evening swinging punches at each other. Hyderabad posted 194 for 9 and then watched Chennai climb into the chase before Eshan Malinga and Nitish Kumar Reddy squeezed the life out of it in the last five overs.
Abhishek Sharma set the tone for the hosts the same way he has done for most of this IPL, bullying the new ball and putting Chennai's seamers on the back foot before they could settle into a plan. His 59 from 22 balls was the platform, and Heinrich Klaasen built the bridge from there with a measured 59 from 39 that dragged SRH back from the middle overs' wobble.
Overton and Kamboj keep Chennai in it
Jamie Overton was the pick of the Chennai bowlers again, finishing with three wickets and doing most of his damage once Abhishek was back in the shed. Anshul Kamboj joined him on three, and the pair repeatedly stopped SRH from kicking on through the middle overs when the hosts looked certain to post something closer to 210.
After a strong powerplay SRH hit a sticky middle phase where boundaries dried up, and for a spell they looked in danger of under-posting on a pitch that clearly had runs in it. Klaasen found a way around the Chennai plan without taking ridiculous risks, working the ball into the gaps and clearing the rope only when the field was set for it. He and Nitish Kumar Reddy added enough at the death to push the score into a defendable zone, which, on this pitch, was anything above 190.
Malinga and Nitish break the chase
Chennai got exactly the start they needed. Ayush Mhatre tore into the powerplay with 30 from 13 before falling to a mistimed pull, and Matthew Short put on a more controlled 34 from 30 alongside him. Sarfaraz Khan chipped in with 25 and Shivam Dube added 21, and for a long stretch of their innings CSK looked like the side more likely to win.
The problem was that nobody could get past 34. Sunrisers kept rotating their wicket-takers through the middle and death, and Eshan Malinga's three-for, in particular, came at exactly the right moment. Nitish Kumar Reddy picked up two of his own, including a key breakthrough when CSK needed a platform to launch from.
Chennai finished on 184 for 8, 10 runs short and with the feeling that one more partnership of 40 anywhere in the innings would have changed the night.
A result SRH badly needed
With Pat Cummins still working his way back from the back injury that has kept him out for most of IPL 2026, stand-in skipper Ishan Kishan and the SRH dressing room needed a performance that looked like a plan rather than a guess. This is the kind of win a patchy season leans on. Beating a Chennai side that has been one of the more competent units in the tournament counts for something, and Klaasen looks every bit the finisher he was two seasons ago. When Abhishek starts an innings like this, SRH are genuinely unpleasant to bowl at.
Chennai's tournament is not in trouble yet. They have enough in this batting order and enough in their seam attack to win most weeks, and an away loss by 10 runs, in a game where they controlled long passages, is not a result that demands an inquest. They will want to figure out why the lower middle order keeps falling a partnership short, though, because this is the second week in a row it has cost them a result.
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