Afghanistan's spinning sensation Rashid Khan dazzled with bat and ball and as a fielder as well as he helped his Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) to first set up a fighting target and then beat the Kolkata Knightriders’ (KKR) 14 runs to storm into the finals of the Indian Premier League (IPL), 2018 T20 cricket tourney against the Chennai Super Kings (CSK) to be played at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai on Sunday night.

The win not only broke SRH's successive losing streak of four matches right from the league stages but it also gave them another shot at the ‘Men in Yellow’ (CSK) against whom they have lost all the three matches in this year’s edition of IPL. The win also put paid to the hopes of KKR to lift the coveted trophy for the third time after winning in 2012 and 2014.

KKR won the toss in the ‘second semi-final’ (as already CSK had made it to the finals) yesterday night and inserted SRH to bat first. Though the opening duo of Shikhar Dhawan and Wriddhiman Saha did well to reach 50 inside seven overs, Kuldeep Yadav struck twice in the 8th over by removing Dhawan and Kane Williamson, who have been the backbone of SRH’s batting this year. Saha departed soon and Shakib Al Hasan and Deepak Hooda were not finding it easy to hit out against the spinning trio of Yadav, Sunil Narine and Piyush Chawla.

After a flurry of wickets, SRH was placed at a modest 138/7 in 18.1 overs when Rashid Khan and pacer Bhuvaneshwar Kumar put on an improbable 36 runs in the next 11 balls, with Rashid hitting 34 of them (of just 10 balls) including four huge sixes and a couple of boundaries. Rashid destroyed the bowling figures of Prasidh Krishna, who had been shaping up very well as a young 'death' bowler, by hitting him for three sixes in the final over including a six off the last ball of the 20th over.

Rashid’s cameo gave the much-needed momentum to the SRH’s total. When 150 looked like a distant dream in the beginning of the 19th over, they had coasted to 174 which in the hindsight proved to be a match-winning total. While chasing, the top order of KKR fired as usual with Narine hitting a 13-ball 26 and Rana making a 16-ball 22. Chiris Lynn made a 31-ball 48 but got out at the wrong time.

Uthappa departed without adding much to the total and when Dinesh Karthik failed with bat (a rarity this season) and departed in the 12th over, KKR was still well-placed as they needed a mere 67 in the last eight overs, which was very much gettable.

However, Rashid’s three wickets including that of the big-hitting Andre Russel. Run-rate kept climbing and when Piyush Chawla got out (after hitting a six) in the beginning of the 19th over, KKR needed 30 runs to win off 11 balls, similar to what SRH did in their last few balls. However, the young duo of Shubman Gill and Shivam Mavi (stalwarts of India’s U-19 cricket world-cup winning team a few months back) couldn’t do much against Brathwaite’s disciplined bowling in the final over and both got out to catches in the deep held nicely by Rashid Khan in the last over.

Rahid Khan was chosen as the ‘Man of the Match’ for his performances with the bat and ball and for his on-field catching. SRH now meets CSK in tomorrow’s final which promises to be nothing less than a humdinger of a match!

Brief scores:

SRH: 174/7 in 20 overs (Saha 35, Dhawan 34, Shakib 28, Hooda 19, Rashid 34*, Kuldeep 2-29) beat KKR 160/9 in 20 overs (Lynn 48, Narine 28, Rana 22, Shubman Gill 30, Kaul 2-32, Brathwaite 2-15, Rashid Khan 3-19)