PHOTOS: Dhawan, Warner help Hyderabad ease past Bangalore

Sunrisers Hyderabad beat Royal Challengers Bangalore by seven wickets in their IPL match in Uppal on Tuesday.

Chasing a target of 161, the home team won with two balls to spare. 

- Scorecard

Earlier, Bangalore captain Virat Kohli won the toss and elected to bat. The visitors played an unchanged side, while Parvez Rasool and Venugopal Rao have come in place of Amit Mishra and Lokesh Rahul for Hyderabad.

Teams: 

Royal Challengers Bangalore: Virat Kohli (captain), Chris Gayle, Parthiv Patel, AB de Villiers, Yuvraj Singh, Sachin Rana, Mitchell Starc, Muttiah Muralitharan, Yuzvendra Chahal, Abu Nechim Ahmed, Varun Aaron 

Sunrisers Hyderabad: Darren Sammy (captain), Shikhar Dhawan, Aaron Finch, Naman Ojha, David Warner, Y Venugopal Rao, Irfan Pathan, Karn Sharma, Parvez Rasool, Dale Steyn, Bhuvneshwar Kumar

Kohli was back in form at the nick of time as Royal Challengers Bangalore scored a respectable 160 for six.

The Bangalore captain struck his first half century of the seventh edition with a free-stroking 67 off 41 balls studded with four boundaries and as many sixes. Kohli's highest score this season till the current match was 35.

The first half certainly belonged to Kohli, who came early after Parthiv Patel was caught plumb in-front by Bhuvneshwar. He took a few balls to settle down but then played some signature shots through the off-side. Out of his four sixes, two were hit off one over from Karn Sharma.

Kohli charged down the track and hit him over straight boundary for a six while the other one was an inside out over extra cover for the second six. The other two sixes came off Darren Sammy and Irfan Pathan.

It was largely due to Kohli's contribution that RCB scored 112 runs in the back 10 having crawled to 48 for two in the first 10 overs.

AB de Villiers (29, 17 balls) and Yuvraj Singh (21) made small contributions.

In fact, the two significant partnership that Kohli was involved were 57 for the third wicket with Yuvraj and more importantly 61 in only 5.1 overs with De Villiers.

The South African was cleaned up by Bhuvneshwar Kumar even as he attempted to hit another six and failed to connect.

During the chase, it was Dhawan's 39-ball innings of 50, his first half century of the season,that set the tone. Dhawan had seven fours and a six and was involved in a 100-run stand (in 12.3 overs) for the opening wicket with David Warner (59).

It was Dhawan, who attacked from the onset with some flowing cover drives and a hooked six off Aaron. The 50 came in the last over of the Powerplay as Warner took off after that. 

Out of his sixes, the first was a charge to Muttiah Muralitharan followed by a couple of clean hits off the half-trackers that Yuzvendra Chahal had on offer. The fourth six off Abu Nechim Ahmed was over long-off.

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David Warner, back in the opening slot, smashed his way to 46-ball-59.

It was his fifth half century of the season and he again showed why he has been Hyderabad's best player so far. 

He was expectedly awarded the man-of-the-match.

Warner was out off a full-toss from Aaron but Naman Ojha (24, 2x6), along with Aaron Finch and captain Darren Sammy saw to it that there were no hiccups in the end.

Both Sunrisers and RCB have 10 points from 12 games each but Kohli's men are a place ahead at fifth with a better net run-rate.