Images from Tuesday's IPL match between Mumbai Indians and SunRisers Hyderabad, in Sharjah.
SunRisers Hyderabad sealed the last play-offs berth in the Indian Premier League with a thumping 10-wicket victory over Mumbai Indians in Sharjah on Tuesday.
Chasing a meagre 150 for victory, after they put the defending champions in to bat, openers David Warner and Wriddhiman Saha took SunRisers home with 17 balls to spare.
While skipper Warner was unbeaten with 85 of 58 balls, Saha scored 58 not out off 45 balls.
Much credit for the resounding victory should go to pacer Sandeep Sharma, who dismissed Mumbai Indians openers Rohit Sharma and Quinton de Kock early in the powerplay.
SunRisers Hyderabad will meet Royal Challengers Bangalore in the Eliminator on November 6.
With their third straight victory, SunRisers finished third in the points table with 14 and a much better run-rate than Royal Challengers Bangalore, who placed fourth with the same number of points.
Tuesday’s result also knocked Kolkata Knight Riders out of the competition, the Eoin Morgan-led side having an inferior run-rate with 14 points.
With Mumbai Indians resting star pacers Jasprit Bumrah and Trent Boult the task was easier for the SunRisers, more so after the mediocre total they put up.
The sole good news for Mumbai was the return to action of skipper Rohit Sharma after a two-week injury lay-off, declaring he is "fit and fine" after concerns over his fitness that led to him being excluded from India's squad for the Australia tour.
In the run chase, Warner and Saha delighted with their range of strokes. Warner went on to cross the 500-run mark for the sixth time in IPL history.
Saha, who is in the team in place of Jonny Bairstow, repaid the faith Warner showed in him with consistent performances. He was again in sublime touch on Tuesday, hitting seven fours and a straight six off Nathan Coulter-Nile.
Warner, at the other end, hit 10 fours and a six.
Earlier, Sandeep continued his fine run with the ball, taking three crucial wickets as SunRisers Hyderabad restricted Mumbai Indians to 149 for 8.
He put the SunRisers, who neeed to win this match to qualify for the play-offs, high in the saddle, having Mumbai Indians reeling at 39 for 2 in the powerplay with the scalps of Rohit (4) and de Kock (25) in his pocket.
Later, he dismissed Ishan Kishan (33) to finish with figures of 3 for 34 in his four overs.
Thanks to Kieron Pollard’s 25-ball 41 the defending champions were able to put up a fighting total after collecting 51 runs from the last five overs.
Rohit, who missed the last four games due to a hamstring injury, made a surprise return in his team's last game ahead of the play-offs. However, he lasted for only seven balls as pacer Sandeep Sharma (3/34) had him caught at mid-off with a well-disguised knuckle ball.
Sandeep also found the stumps of Rohit's opening partner Quinton de Kock (36 off 29), who played on after smashing the pacer for couple of sixes and a boundary.
It was the turn of spinners Rashid Khan (1/32) and Shahbaz Nadeem (2/19) to provide SunRisers wickets in the middle-overs.
Nadeem got rid of the in-form Suryakumar Yadav (36) and Krunal Pandya (0) in the 12th over and then Rashid removed Saurabh Tiwary in the following one to reduce Mumbai to 82 for 5.
Just when the partnership between Ishan Kishan (33 of 30) and Pollard was looking dangerous, Sandeep removed the former to tighten the screws on the opposition.
However, Pollard came to his team's rescue yet again with a valuable cameo. He hammered four sixes, three of which were in the penultimate over, bowled by death overs specialist T Natarajan.
West Indian all-rounder Jason Holder also produced a tidy spell to finish with the wickets of Pollard and Nathan Coulter-Nile for 25 runs from his four overs.
