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Black Caps captain Kane Williamson led the way for Sunrises Hyderabad by scoring 50 knockouts.
Black Caps captain Kane Williamson played a leading role when Sunrisers Hyderabad eliminated Royal Challengers Bangalore from the Indian Premier League playoffs by six wickets on Saturday (NZT).
They will play the Delhi Capitals on Monday. The winner will face the defending champion Mumbai Indians in the final on Wednesday.
West Indies all-rounder Jason Holder took three wickets when Hyderabad restricted Bangalore to 131-7, then combined with Williamson to win with two balls remaining. Holder reached the limit of victory at an undefeated 24. Williamson was not out of 50.
“A bit close for my liking,” Hyderabad captain David Warner said. “But at the end of the day when you have a guy like Kane [you back him]. What a master class. “
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The poise and experience of Williamson and Holder in the end was key.
Bangalore’s 131-7 total looked poor. But his bowlers made it seem possible to defend.
Medium pace Mohammed Siraj eliminated starting batter Sreevats Goswami by a duck and Warner by 17. Legspinner Adam Zampa claimed Manish Pandey by 24, and legpinner Yuzvendra Chahal edged Priyam Garg with 7 at 67-4 in the 12th over.
Holder went into the middle to join Williamson, who was fighting 13 of 23 balls after 13 overs.
But Zampa, 1-12 and Chahal, 1-24, finished and the batters slowly took over.
“They didn’t give us much at all,” Williamson said of Zampa and Chahal. “It was nice that we could get past his overs without losing too much ground.”
It took 28 runs to win with 18 balls, and they took 10 from Navdeep Saini and nine from Siraj.
With nine runs needed since Saini’s last pass, Williamson singled in his fifties, and Holder hit the third ball to the long limit and the fourth point past the fence for the victory.
Holder finished when he started. With the ball in hand, he knocked out Bangalore’s starting hitter Virat Kohli with 6 in the second over and Devdutt Paddikal with 1 in the fourth.
International captains Aaron Finch and AB de Villiers fought to escape.
Finch hit Bangalore’s only six innings before going 32 of 30. Moeen Ali ran for a duck in the same eleventh change.
Video replays showed that Shivam Dube was knocked out with Rashid Khan at 1, but it was not given. The damage was limited, as Holder fired him at 8 to take 3-20.
De Villiers was 54 of 39 balls in the 18th when his middle stump was thrown by a T Natarajan yorker, whose wife gave birth just hours earlier, according to Warner. The wicket was vital as Bangalore managed only two limits in the last four overs. They came out with five losses in a row.
In contrast, Williamson hit two sixes by giving Hyderabad a chance for a third appearance in the final.
