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Cape Town - The Sunrisers Hyderabad were crowned the 2016 Indian Premier League champions when they beat the Royal Challengers Bangalore by eight runs in the final at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru on Sunday evening.
The Sunrisers, who won the toss and elected to bat first, posted 208 for seven in their 20 overs on the back of a half-century from their captain David Warner (69) and a cameo of 39 off 15 from Ben Cutting.
According to supersport.com, the Royal Challengers were on target with the chase midway through their innings but fell apart, ending on 200 for seven.
The Bengaluru crowd were certain that it would be third time lucky for them with Chris Gayle smashing the ball to all corners of the park as the big-hitting left-hander and Virat Kohli set the tone with an opening stand of 114 off just 67 balls.
But Gayle went for one big shot too many and launched the ball to Bipul Sharma off Cutting (4-0-35-2) for 76 off 38 balls which included four boundaries and eight sixes.
Kohli, the tournament's leading run scorer, played on for 54 off Barinder Sran (3-0-41-1) but the wheels fell off when AB de Villiers (5) mistimed a shot off Sharma (2-0-17-1) and Lokesh Rahul was clean-bowled by Cutting.
Shane Watson (11), Sachin Baby (18 not out) and Stuart Binny (9) each hit a maximum but it was not enough as Bhuvneshwar Kumar (4-0-25-1) and Mustafizur Rahman (4-0-37-1) closed off the innings in style.
Earlier, Warner and Shikhar Dhawan (28) gave the underdogs a good start with an opening stand of 63 off 42 balls before Dhawan swept Yuzvendra Chahal (4-0-35-1) to Chris Jordan on the boundary after striking three boundaries and a six.
Warner continued on his merry way as he and Moises Henriques (4) added 34 off 19 balls for the second wicket.
But when Warner offered Iqbal Abdulla an easy catch at short third man off Sreenath Aravind (4-0-30-2), after facing 38 balls and striking eight boundaries and three sixes, the wheels came off somewhat as Yuvraj Singh (38) failed to push on after adding 28 off 22 with Warner.
But Cutting smashed three fours and four maximums to end unbeaten on 39 to launch his side over the 200-run mark. Cutting was in such a destructive mood that he and Kumar (one not out) added 34 runs off nine balls with the right-arm bowler facing just a single delivery.
Chris Jordan (4-0-45-3) was instrumental in pulling the Sunrisers back but Cutting let loose on Watson (4-0-61-0) in the final over, as Cutting claimed 23 of the 24 runs off the final six balls.
