Warner powers Sunrisers to final

Skipper David Warner stood tall as his batsmen faltered around him and guided Sunrisers Hyderabad to the Indian Premier League final through a tense four-wicket victory over Gujarat Lions in the qualifier at the Feroz Shah Kotla in Delhi yesterday.

Warner hit an ice-cool, unbeaten 93 off 58 balls with three sixes and 11 fours, the last of which tied the game off the first ball of the last over bowled by Praveen Kumar. The second was threaded through a packed off-side infield for the winning run as Hyderabad overtook the target of 162 with four balls to spare.

Hyderabad were reduced to 84 for five in the 13th over after some incisive bowling from left-arm chinaman bowler Shivil Kaushik, who got rid of Yuvraj Singh and Ben Cutting. But Warner was there to ensure that his team went through and was helped massively by Bipul Sharma's 11-ball 27 with three sixes, one of which brought the equation down from a difficult 11 from seven to an easy five from the last over.

Earlier, Hyderabad won the toss and took the field without one of their main bowlers, Bangladeshi pacer Mustafizur Rahman, who sat the match out with an injury. Gujarat, riding on Aaron Finch's 32-ball 50, posted 162 for seven even though Hyderabad pacer Bhuvneshwar Kumar was again excellent with figures of two for 27 in four overs.

SCORES IN BRIEF
GUJARAT: 162 for 7 (Finch 50, McCullum 32, Karthik 26; Cutting 2-20, Kumar 2-27)
HYDERABAD: 163 for 6 in 19.2 overs (Warner 93 not out, Sharma 27 not out; Kaushik 2-22, Bravo 2-32)
Result: Hyderabad won by 4 wickets.