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Sunrisers Hyderabad ride on another Abhishek blitz to keep hopes of top-two finish alive
Prabhsimran Singh and Atharya Taide put on 97 for the first wicket off 55 balls, Rilee Rossouw hit 49 at a strike rate above 200, and Jithesh Sharma provided the closing fireworks, with 32 not out off 15. They set Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) 215 to win.
And still it wasn’t enough for Punjab Kings (PBKS). Not nearly enough to halt the batting juggernaut that SRH have been in IPL 2024. They lost their best batter Travis Head first ball, but raced through the powerplay thanks to Abhishek Sharma and Rahul Tripathi, who hit 66 off 28 and 33 off 18 respectively, propelling the team to 84 for 2 at the end of their first six overs.
From then, the scoring didn’t really slow until the target was within sight. Heinrich Klaasen led SRH to the brink of victory with 42 off 26. The winning runs were hit with five balls to spare.
Dare we say something about the bowlers? Only SRH’s T Natarajan escaped with decent figures, taking 2 for 33.
SRH now move into second on the points table. Whether they stay there and play the Qualifier 1, rather than the Eliminator, depends on whether Rajasthan Royals win in the second game of the day, against table-toppers Kolkata Knight Riders.
In what was their last home game this season, Abhishek gave the SRH faithful a show to remember a batting-powered season by. He smashed his first two sixes over fine leg, when bowlers delivered short-of-a-length balls into the body, and went on to hit six sixes in all, in addition to five fours. Most of these relied on excellent timing, but there was luck there too – one of the sixes came off the outside edge.
He sped past 50 off 21 balls, but this was only his third-fastest half-century this season – he had hit fifties off 16 and 19 balls in the weeks gone by.
Abhishek’s 72-run partnership with Tripathi, which came off 29 balls, was the foundation of SRH’s chase. Even after they were parted, the required rate seemed tame.
As good as Abhishek’s fireworks were, SRH still needed 86 off the last 59 balls after he was out, and Klaasen delivered one of his more chilled-out innings. He still hit sixes when it felt good, of course, the most spectacular being the back-foot six down the ground off the bowling of Harpreet Brar, who had just delivered a standard length ball outside off stump.
But as wickets fell around him, it needed someone to take responsibility and massage the chase home. Klaasen was bowled by Brar with SRH needing seven to win off 11 balls. But he had got them close enough.
PBKS had reason to hope they would get a closing win for this season, though, and finish outside the bottom two, mainly because of the start they had in the game. Prabhsimran was outstanding on the leg side, hitting all his four sixes there in his 71 off 45. Taide made 46 off 27.
There was something of a slowdown after Vijayakanth Viyaskanth, the young legspinner from Jaffna, took Prabhsimran’s wicket in the 15th over. Although Jitesh finished strong, perhaps overs 15 to 18 (both inclusive) was when PBKS lost their way. They had been 151 for 1 at the start of that passage, looking poised to push 250. By the end of the 18th over, they were 186 for 5.
Brief Scores:
Punjab Kings 214/5 in 20 overs (Prabhsimran Singh 71, Rilee Rossouw 49, Atharva Taide 46, Jitesh Sharma 32*; Pat Cummins 1-36, Thangarasu Natarajan 2-33, Vijayakanth Viyaskanth 1-37) lost to Sunrisers Hyderabad 215/6 in 19.1 overs (Abhishek Sharma 66, Heinrich Klaasen 42, Rahul Tripathi 33, Nitish Kumar Reddy 37; Arshdeep Singh 2-37, Harshal Patel 2-49, Harpreet Brar 1-36, Shahsank Singh 1-05) by 4 wickets
(Cricinfo)
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Heavy showers about (100-150) mm are likely at some places in the Central, Sabaragamuwa, Uva and Southern provinces
WEATHER FORECAST FOR 13 October 2026
Issued at 2.00 p.m. on 12 October 2026 by the Department of Meteorology
A low-pressure area may form over the southeastern Bay of Bengal by 13 October.
Under the influence of this system, an increase in rainfall is expected over the island and the deep and shallow sea areas around the island during the next few days from tomorrow (13).
The general public, as well as the naval and fishing communities, are requested to be attentive to the future forecasts and bulletins issued by the Department of Meteorology in this regard.
Heavy showers about (100-150) mm are likely at some places in the Central, Sabaragamuwa, Uva and Southern provinces.
Fairly heavy showers above 75 mm are likely at some places in the other areas of the island. Showers or thundershowers will occur in most parts of the island.
The general public is kindly requested to take adequate precautions to minimize damage caused by temporary localized strong winds and lightning during thundershowers.
Misty conditions can be expected at some places in the Sabaragamuwa, Central and Uva provinces during the early hours of the morning.
Maaz Sadaqat crashed 96 off 51,Sahibzada Farhan clobbered 73 off 44, and Pakistan scorched their way through the last 12 overs of their innings to mount a fearsome total of 215 for 3. Pakistan reaped 156 runs just in the last 12 overs of their innings, as a 73-run stand between Sadaqat and Farhan was followed by a manic 72-run partnership between Sadaqat and Hasan Nawaz.
Sri Lanka’s batting was woeful in response. They slumped to 64 for 5 by the 11th over, with none of their top seven managing to get to 30. They limped to 133 for 7, having had their hopes of leveling the series wrecked by quicks Mohammad Imran and Salman Mirza, who took five wickets between them.
Sadaqat propels Pakistan into the stratosphere
The openers had laid a decent platform with Pakistan having got to 55 for 1 by the end of the seventh over. But it was Sadaqat who injected the energy that truly set Pakistan on course to their mammoth total. Having gone at less than a run a ball in his first eight balls, Sadaqat unleashed a spectacular lofted square drive off Eshan Malinga to collect his first six, before pumping the same bowler down the ground later in the 10th over.
Sadaqat would go on to clobber six further sixes and five further fours. The big hits tended to come down the ground, while his fours were more square of the wicket. Of the 125 runs Pakistan plundered in the second half of their innings, 79 off 40 came from Sadaqat, who pummeled both pace and spin with equal relish. Off the sixteenth over, bowled by Maheesh Theekshana, Sadaqat thumped three sixes in the arc between long on and midwicket.
Sadaqat, whose previous top score in three T20Is had been 50, could have gone to triple figures off the last ball of the innings, but holed out to deep cover instead, unable to quite find the power to lift a Malinga slower ball over the ropes. He had utterly dominated the middle and late overs, however.
Farhan sets the tone
On another flat Rawalpindi deck, Farhan made the first big charge, although he waited until spin came on to really get into high gear. Theekshana was one of his main victims as well. Farhan’s first six came from a slog sweep off Theekshana in the seventh over, before he launched the same bowler over wide long on and cow corner off successive balls in the ninth over. Getting to his 12th T20I fifty off the 31st ball he faced, Farhan began to aim big blows off the seamers as well. He was caught at deep third off the bowling of Dasun Shanaka, in the 15th over.
Sri Lanka stumble in the powerplay
An excellent Salman Mirza bouncer took the glove of Lahiru Udara in the first over, ending the innings of one of Sri Lanka’s few form batters for a mere five runs. And although Sineth Jayawardena – playing his first international in a full-strength Sri Lanka side – hit three consecutive boundaries in the third over, Sri Lanka were unable to build up any momentum in the powerplay. By the end of the sixth over, they had laboured to 35 for 2.
Imran’s spell lights up the middle overs
A full house in Rawalpindi was treated to some excellent fast bowling by Imran, who finished with the game’s best figures of 3 for 11 from his four overs. Having got Jayawardena to top-edge a desperate pull shot at the end of his second over, Imran had Kusal Mendis caught behind off a slower delivery, before two balls later (a wide in between), he took Sahan Arachchige’s edge with a quick delivery angled across the left-hander. Wicketkeeper Khawaja Nafay made two diving grabs to convert these chances in the eighth over.
All through his unbroken spell, Sri Lanka’s batter struggled to so much as hit Imran off the square, despite the good batting conditions on offer. Imran mixed up his pace, frequently going to slower balls, but his line and length control were also excellent through the spell. When he finished his unbroken spell at the end of the 10th over, Sri Lanka’s required rate had climbed past 15.
Chamindu Wickramasinghe and Theekshana struck some late boundaries, but by the time they came to the crease, Sri Lanka did not have a realistic shot at levelling this series. They lost by 82 runs in the end.
Scores:
Pakistan 215 for 3 in 20 overs (Sahibzada Farhan 73, Fakhar Zaman 22, Maaz Sadaqat 96, Hasan Nawaz 19*; Maheesh Theekshana 1-55, Eshan Malinga 1-41,Dasun Shanaka 1-30) beat Sri Lanka 133 for 7 (Sineth Jayawardena 22, Kamnbdu Mendis 23, Chamindu Wickremasinghe 29, Maheesh Theekshana 32*; Salman Mirza 2=28, Mohammad Imran 3-11, Saim Ayub 1-19, Shadab Khan 1-19) by 82 runs
[Cricinfo]
At least 139 people, including 15 children, have died and 84 are missing after a boat capsized off the coast of Djibouti, according to the United Nations migration agency.
In a statement on Sunday, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) quoted survivors as saying that the incident happened near Guhere off Djibouti’s eastern coast in the Gulf of Aden near the Bab al-Mandeb strait from Thursday night to before dawn on Friday.
The boat was heading from Djibouti to Yemen with more than 300 people on board. More than 80 people – all Ethiopians – survived the shipwreck while Djiboutian search and rescue operations continued.
“Our teams are on the ground alongside local authorities to provide emergency assistance,” IOM Chief of Mission in Djibouti Alexandre Coissac said, lamenting the “devastating loss of life”.
That number only includes those buried by authorities in Djibouti. Others have been buried by the migrants themselves but they won’t be added to the official count until authorities can verify the bodies, Alexandre Coissac, IOM Chief of Mission in Djibouti, told the Associated Press.
“This tragedy is a stark reminder of the dangers faced by migrants along this migration corridor as they seek economic opportunities,” Coissac added.
[Aljazeera]
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Showers above 75 mm are likely at some places in the Western, Sabaragamuwa, Central, Southern, Uva and North-Western provinces and in Anuradhapura and Mannar districts.
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