CSK vs SRH: The Sunrisers Hyderabad all but confirmed their place in the playoffs in a must-win game against the Chennai Super Kings tonight. But what were the hits and flops in this CSK vs SRH game?
Today’s CSK vs SRH game was Match 63 of IPL 2026. It was played at the MA Chidambaram in Chennai, with the home team winning the toss and surprisingly deciding to bat first.
The Super Kings got off to a decent start with Sanju Samson hitting the ball all over the park in the first couple of overs. But the team struggled with losing wickets at regular intervals. The middle-order picked up the slack, as Kartik Sharma and Dewald Brevis powered CSK to a decent total of 180/7 in 20 overs on a challenging pitch.
In response, SRH lost their openers for cheap. But the duo of Heinrich Klaasen and Ishan Kishan nearly won the game for their side on their own. Kishan played a match-winning knock of 70 off 47 as the game ended an over early. The Sunrisers won the match by five wickets and with six balls remaining.
Today, we will discuss three hits and flops from the CSK vs SRH game in IPL 2026, Match 63.
Three Hits And Flops From CSK Vs SRH Match
Hits
1. Ishan Kishan
Ishan Kishan captained the Sunrisers Hyderabad for the first half of IPL 2026 as regular skipper Pat Cummins was sidelined for half the season. Today, despite no longer being the captain, Kishan played a leader’s knock to ensure his team’s victory in a must-win game.
The wicketkeeper/batter came in to bat at No. 3 in the third over, after Travis Head had departed for cheap. In the first full over he played, he scored three boundaries. However, there was no quick start for Ishan’s innings in this game, as he played cautiously alongside Abhishek Sharma throughout the powerplay. At the end of the sixth over, the score was 45/1, and Kishan was batting at 20 off 16.
The 27-year-old would not start to accelerate until quite a long time after Abhishek lost his wicket in the eighth over. By the end of the 10th over, the score was 75/2 with Ishan Kishan and Heinrich Klaasen on the crease. SRH needed 106 runs in 60 balls at this point.
Klaasen took charge of scoring boundaries from here on. At the end of the 12th, the South African was batting at 33 off 19 balls.
Kishan popped off in the 13th over, hitting a four and a six. Klaasen got out in the 15th over, and Kishan reached his half-century in the 16th in 37 deliveries.
With 38 runs needed in the final four overs, the Sunrisers needed someone to take charge, and that would be the former captain. Out of the 25 runs that came in the next two overs, Ishan scored 17 and would only get out in the 19th over, with only six runs required in nine balls.
Ishan Kishan scored 70 off 47 on a pitch that offered a bit of a challenge. He did not play the quickest innings of his career tonight, but played a cautious one that his team needed, only accelerating when necessary. For his innings, Kishan was named the Player of the Match.
Check Out: LSG vs CSK Hits and Flops.
2. Pat Cummins
Pat Cummins was arguably the best performer of this CSK vs SRH game tonight. And while the Sunrisers Hyderabad skipper was not named the Player of the Match, he played a vital role in his team’s victory in this crucial game.
Hyderabad was put in the bowl first after losing the toss. In the first two overs, Chennai Super Kigns opener Sanju Samson punished the bowling duo of Nitish Kumar Reddy and Praful Hinge. In two overs, the score had risen to 30 runs on a pitch expected to be at least a little challenging for the batters.
Cummins came in as the first replacement bowler, bowling the third over of the innings. And almost immediately, the Aussie made an impact, taking Sanju Samson’s wicket on the third ball of his first over. Pat bowled a long delivery outside the off-stump. Sanju, looking to drive it away, instead edged the ball and was caught behind for 27 off 13.
And while Urvil Patel ended that over with back-to-back maximums, only 13 runs came off it.
After a poor end to his first over, Cummins came back into the attack in the 10th over. This set of six balls was much better. Here, he conceded just two runs and took the important wicket of Kartik Sharma. The Australian cricket team captain bowled a slow bouncer, allowing Sharma to hit it towards cover and be caught out for 32 off 19 instead.
He stayed on to bowl the 12th over. In that over, he conceded just a single run and dismissed the opposition captain, Ruturaj Gaikwad, for 13 off 21 balls. While Gaikwad played what would end up being a damaging innings for his own team, dismissing him before he could accelerate was a big win for SRH.
Pat Cummins rounded out his spell in the 16th over, where he did concede 12 runs. But overall, he bowled an excellent four-over spell with the figures of 3/28 and an economy of seven.
3. Heinrich Klaasen
Heinrich Klaasen came in to bat at a troubling time for the Sunrisers Hyderabad. The veteran South African came out in the eighth over after Abhishek Sharma’s dismissal. The score at this point was 56/2.
At the end of the 10th over, the team’s total was 75/2, and they needed 106 runs in 60 deliveries, a challenging task, seeing how slow the Sunrisers had been playing up until this point and how the pitch was favouring spinners.
At such a crucial moment, one batter had to take charge of hitting boundaries and scoring quickly. That batter was to be Klaasen. He had already hit a boundary and a maximum in the 10th over. He did that again in the 11th over and had raced up to 33 off 19 by the end of the 12th over.
In the six deliveries he played in the 15th and 16th overs, Heinrich hit three boundaries. He did end up losing his wicket in the 16th, but only after scoring 47 off 26.
His runs came at a strike rate of 180. And while the Protea did not win the game for his team or was the highest run scorer for Hyderabad in this match, he did provide a platform for his team to finish the game. At the time of his arrival, the required run rate was over 10. And by the time he had gotten out, rather than letting it get out of hand, he brought it down to around nine.
Flops
1. SRH Opening
The Sunrisers Hyderabad were put to chase a tricky target of 181 on a pitch that was not the most conducive to batting in a must-win game. Ideally, their explosive opening duo of Abhishek Sharma and Travis Head should have given them a fiery start. That, however, did not happen.
The two, as usual, opened the batting for SRH. Abhishek did look good right at the beginning, hitting Mukesh Choudhary for two boundaries in the first over of the innings.
With the young Indian batter setting the pace, all he had to do was follow. And while only five runs came off the second over by Spencer Johnson, the Aussie hit a cracking four.
15 runs came off the first two overs. But it was about to go south for the Sunrisers in the next over. The third over, bowled by Choudary, saw three runs come off the first two balls. The third ball, played by Head, saw the batter play a pull off a short and quick ball.
The ball instead hit the bottom edge of the bat and was easily caught by the bowler. Travis Head was out after making a run-a-ball six.
Just four runs came off the fourth over. So to compensate for a slow start, the incoming Ishan Kishan hit three boundaries in the fourth over, bowled by Johnson.
Sharma, who had been struggling for over a year at this point, hit another four on the first ball of the fifth over, in which came seven runs.
At the five-over mark, the SRH score was 381. They needed to produce a big one in the final over of the powerplay. And while Kishan hit a six in this one, only seven runs came off it.
The two batters on the pitch were not batting quickly. Abhishek was especially struggling, batting at 18 off 14, a particularly slow start for him. He hit a six on the final ball of the seventh over, taking his score to 25 off 19.
As spin was introduced in the eighth over, Abhishek Sharma was about to be puzzled. On the fourth ball of the over by Akeal Hossein, Sharma looked to play a sweep, mistimed it, and was caught at backward square for 26 off 21.
While chasing a 180+ target, the Hyderabad openers played 27 balls together and made 32 runs, giving their team a poor start.
2. Praful Hinge and Nitish Kumar Reddy
The Sunrisers Hyderabad bowling lineup held up pretty well tonight. Four out of the six bowlers they used bowled at an economy of under nine. However, it was the other two that allowed for runs to flow.
Nitish Kumar Reddy opened the bowling for SRH in this game. The all-rounder, while known for his seam, might not have been the best choice to bowl the first over of the game.
This was proven by Sanju Samson. Reddy bowled a no-ball on the first delivery of the game and was then punished by Samson. The CSK wicketkeeper/batter hit him for two fours and a six in that over, off which 17 runs came.
Then, in the second over, bowled by Hinge, Sanju hit three boundaries in a row and made 13 runs. After the two opening bowlers were thrashed, captain Pat Cummins had to come in to bowl the third and take the massive wicket of Samson.
Hinge returned to the attack in the eighth over, and the first three balls of this over were hit for a four, a six, and then another four by Kartik Sharma.
Meanwhile, Nitish Reddy would not come to bowl again till the 14th over. In this over, he conceded two boundaries and a maximum for a total of 18 runs, this time being taken to the cleaners by Shivam Dube and Dewald Brevis. This was also the last over bowled by Reddy in this game.
On the other hand, Praful Hinge would bowl one more, coming back to bowl the final over of the innings. This was by far his best over of the game, as he gave away just eight runs and dismissed Prashant Veer on the final ball of the 20th over.
Nitish bowled two overs tonight, took no wickets, and conceded 35 runs at an economy of 17.5. Hinge, meanwhile, bowled three overs and put up the figures of 1/37, taking a wicket only on his last ball and giving away runs at an economy of 12.33. The two together bowled five overs, took just a single wicket, and leaked 72 runs.
3. CSK’s Experienced Batters
The Chennai Super Kings surprised everyone by winning the toss and deciding to bat first. It was then assumed that the pitch would deteriorate as the game went on. And while the team, in the end, reached a competitive total, their experienced batters did not play a massive role in that happening.
The innings were opened by the veteran pair of wicketkeeper/batter Sanju Samson and skipper Ruturaj Gaikwad. Sanju started aggressively, making 15 runs in just six balls in the first over, hitting two fours and a six.
He then hit three boundaries in the second over, racing up to 27 off 11 by the end of the second. It seemed that he would give the Super Kings the flying start they needed. However, before clearing the boundary rope again, he would get out on the third ball of the third over, caught behind by Ishan Kishan off a delivery by Pat Cummins, getting out for 27 off 13.
This brought in Urvil Patel, the batter playing only his second IPL season, who took the baton from Samson and started hitting boundaries. On the other end of the pitch was all the experience in this partnership in the shape of Gaikwad.
The captain decided to take a passive approach, bringing the slow anchor of the innings while batters at the other end scored quick runs. Ruturaj would not end up scoring a single boundary in his 21-ball innings, in which he made 15 runs at a strike rate of just over 70. He would not be dismissed until the 12th over, becoming Cummins’ second wicket long after he should have started to accelerate.
The CSK middle-order is quite young. The trio of Urvil Patel, who had gotten out in the powerplay for 13 off eight, Kartik Sharma, and Dewald Brevis are quite inexperienced in this league. This middle order is capped off by another veteran in Shivam Dube, who has not been in the best form in IPL 2026.
After Kartik and Dewald stabilised the innings, Dube came in to bat in the 12th over alongside Brevis. However, at a time, the team needed to start picking up the pace if they were to reach a total of around 200; Shivam played yet another anchoring innings.
The all-rounder batted till the 19th over, played 23 balls, and scored just 26 runs at a strike rate of 113 before being bowled by Sakib Hussain, before he could capitalise on his time on the pitch and start hitting sixes. `
Get IPL 2026 Live Score, Team Updates, along with the Latest Player News at IceCric.News and Follow for Live Updates – Facebook & Instagram.
