What an exciting match we witnessed in Mullanpur, where the Sunrisers Hyderabad emerged victorious against the Punjab Kings in a nail-biting encounter. Despite the valiant efforts of Arshdeep Singh, Shashank Singh and Ashutosh Sharma, we couldn't clinch the win this time. However, we remain determined to bounce back stronger in our next fixture.

Choosing to field first with an unchanged lineup, we began well with Kagiso Rabada's excellent first over, conceding only 4 runs and troubling Travis Head. But Head fought back, hitting three consecutive boundaries off Rabada's next over. Yet, Arshdeep Singh struck back, dismissing Head and Markram in quick succession, putting us in a commanding position.

Abhishek Sharma showed promise but fell to Sam Curran for just 16 runs.

Our persistence paid off when Harshal Patel removed Rahul Tripathi cheaply in the 10th over. Nitish Reddy then launched a counterattack. Heinrich Klaasen departed early, thanks to Harshal Patel's bowling, managing only 9 runs.

Reddy then took centre-stage with an impressive maiden IPL fifty, scoring 64 off 37 balls. Wth Abdul Samad's 25 and Shahbaz Ahmed's quickfire 14 off 7 deliveries, the youngster propelled the Sunrisers to a competitive total of 182 for 9 in their allotted 20 overs. Arshdeep Singh was the star, picking up 4 wickets.

In response, we had a difficult start losing Jonny Bairstow, Prabhsimran Singh and Shikhar Dhawan early on. Sam Curran and Sikandar Raza showed resilience, scoring 29 and 28 runs respectively off 22 balls each. Jitesh Sharma added 19 runs before his dismissal, leaving us with a challenging target of 67 runs off 24 balls. It was then that our heroes from the previous match, Shashank Singh and Ashutosh Sharma, stepped up. They scored 17 runs from Bhuvneshwar's final over and followed it up with 11 runs off Cummins.

Although T Natarajan bowled a tight 10-run over in the 19th, leaving us needing 29 runs off the last over, Shashank and Ashutosh fought till the end, scoring 26 runs but falling short by just 2 runs.

Despite the narrow loss, we are proud of our team's efforts. We'll regroup and aim to perform at our best in the next game against the Rajasthan Royals on Saturday, 13th April, once again in Mullanpur.

Brief Scores: Sunrisers Hyderabad 182-9 in 20 overs (Nitish Reddy 64, Abdul Samad 25, Arshdeep Singh 4/29) defeat Punjab Kings 180-6 in 20 overs (Shashank Singh 46*, Ashutosh Sharma 33*, Bhuvneshwar Kumar 2/32)

Man of the Match: Nitish Reddy