At a time when Rising Pune Supergiants were crusing to victory against Sunrisers Hyderabad, rain gods showered the stadium and had put a hold to see Rising Pune Supergiants win after losing their last four games in the Indian Premier league.
After restricting Sunrisers Hyderabad to 118/8 in first innings, it was Deja Vu for the visitors as their in-form batsman Ajinkya Rahane fell for a duck off Bhuvneshwar Kumar and was caught by Eoin Morgan.
But that was it. Afterwards, South African Faf du Plessis and Australia’s Steve Smith who has not been in good form in the Indian Premier league made unbeaten 46 runs off 36 balls and made sure that the team does not falter in the mid-way to not so much of a big score.
At 94/3, rain interrupted again and the play was called-off. After certain inspection by the officials and the on-field umpires, both the captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni and David Warner shook hands.
Rising Pune Supergiants were 34-runs ahead off the par score and when the D/l method had come into play. For Sunrisers Hyderabad, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, veteran pacer Ashish Nehra and Moses Henriques got one wicket apiece.
Earlier, exploiting favourable conditions, Rising Pune Supergiants restricted Sunrisers Hyderabad to a modest 118 for eight, earning a brilliant opportunity to bring their floundering IPl campaign back on track in a rain-hit match, here on Tuesday night.
Supergiants revelled under the conditions with pace duo of Ashok Dinda (3/23) and Mitchell Marsh (2/14) rattling the Hyderabad top-order.
The rain forced a one-hour delay and sluggish conditions made the decision to bowl first more suitable.
The hosts owed their total to opener Shikhar Dhawan, who struck a fighting unbeaten 56 that had two fours and a six.
Dinda extracted some good bounce from the track and scalped David Warner (0) and Aditya Tare (8) early in the innings. Warner slashed widish delivery straight to Ajinkya Rahane while Tare's miscued pull was taken by Thisara Perera.
Marsh too was impressive from the other end, getting rid of dangerous Eoin Morgan (0).
Dhawan was holding the fort tightly but kept losing partners from the other end. Marsh completed his quota of overs with another wicket, by dismissing Moises Henriques.
In between, Ravichandran Ashwin sent back Deepak Hooda with his first ball of the spell.
The stage was now set for Supergiants to push for a win which it needed badly. The hosts were gasping at 32 for five with Dhawan and Naman Ojha having a great task at hand to repair the innings.
The two played sensibly, focusing more on ones and twos to keep the scoreboard ticking. They waited for the odd bad ball for big shots. One such shot came in the 15th over when Ojha lofted Rajat Bhatia for a maximum in the cow corner. Ojha and Dhawan added 47 runs, much needed to lend some respectability to the total, for the sixth wicket.
Dhoni brought back Dinda and he responded by castling Ojha, who made 18 off 21 balls.
Bhuvneshwar Kumar played a very useful cameo of 21 runs from just eight balls and that was crucial in taking the hosts past three-figure mark.