Warner powers Sunrisers to 177/4

Sunrisers Hyderabad skipper David Warner powered his side to a formidable 177 for four against Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) in their Indian Premier league (IPl) match at the ACA-VDCA Cricket Stadium here on Wednesday.

Warner was merciless in his treatment of the Knight's bowling attack smashing his way to 91 off 55 balls studded with nine boundaries and four huge sixes. The skipper was ably supported by his opening partner Shikhar Dhawan who made 54 off 46 balls and stitched a 130-run partnership with the Australian.

KKR fought their way back into the contest by picking three quick wickets and restricted them to a chaseable total.Sunrisers' opening duo of Dhawan and Warner were made to work hard for their runs initially, with the first three overs only producing a single boundary. But thereafter Warner broke the shackles. He switch-hitted South African spinner Johan Botha for four to mark the beginning of his aggressiveness.

The openers then started scoring runs freely. KKR skipper Gautam Gambhir introduced his leading spinner including West Indian Sunil Narine in the fourth over. But his plan to deploy spinners upfront backfired as they could not check the flow of runs or pick up early wickets. At the half way stage, Sunrisers were 80 for no loss.

Warner finally fell to a Morne Morkel delivery in the 14th over -- a short-of-length ball from the South African was top edged by Warner and wicketkeeper Robin Uthappa did not make any mistake in gathering the offering. Narine proved expensive and remained wicketless giving away 38 runs of his four overs.

Dhawan carried on the show and changed gears rapidly after playing second fiddle to Warner for much of the innings. After a few trademark hits of his, he perished in the 19th over. The home side ended on a high as the last over of the innings, bowled by pacer Umesh Yadav, yielded 13 runs.