IPL Pulse: Won big, but not big enough

Good morning

Friday night rushed by in a blur (of fours and sixes), even if you stayed home and didn't party. If you were looking for a recap, you've come to the right place. Here's Cricbuzz Pulse, your 2-minute scan of the IPL-verse.

Hyderabad was the closest thing to the if you were a bowler

Abhishek Sharma, Ishan Kishan and Heinrich Klaasen all struck rapid fifties

Nitish Reddy added finishing touches as SRH powered to 255/4

RCB began their chase brightly but faded away

SRH won, but not by enough to edge into the top two

RCB used six bowlers last night and not one managed to finish with an economy rate less than 12. Neither Josh Hazlewood nor Purple Cap holder Bhuvneshwar Kumar were spared the punishment and that reflected the scale of RCB's plight on possibly the flattest surface laid out at Hyderabad this season.

The award goes to Virat Kohli for starring in the latest edition of handshakegate by bluntly walking past Travis Head during the post-match handshakes.

The award goes to RCB for finishing at the top of the table despite their 55-run loss.

The award goes to Travis Head for coming on to bowl and dismissing Rajat Patidar to claim his first IPL wicket in nine years.

Venkatesh Iyer bags the award for batting in three different positions in his four games and still doing well.

The award goes to Heinrich Klaasen for going from 5 off 9 to 51 off 24.

The award goes to Chris Gayle for turning up to watch the match last night.

SRH won by 55 runs, a fairly sizeable margin in isolation, but it wasn't enough to help them break into the top two on the points table. In another universe, it might've been though. In the very first game of the tournament, RCB hunted down 202 in just 15.4 overs against SRH. Had they taken 19 overs instead, and every other result played out exactly the same, SRH would have needed to win by 56 runs in this game! Here's more including how GT could've (technically) been displaced from the top-two.

"I've got a lot of respect for Venky," said Andy Flower, heaping praise on the all-rounder for his attitude and patience.

Flower also said that it was up to the batters to decide whether to go for the target or just score 180 to secure first place on the table.

"RCB dropped a lot of catches, which actually gave us more runs than we potentially deserved," said Daniel Vettori quite modestly.

Rajat Patidar (50 innings) is the third fastest to 100 IPL sixes in terms of innings, only behind Chris Gayle (37 innings) and Andre Russell (47 innings).

With all three top teams finishing on 18 points, and very little to separate the others, one of the teams currently high on the Fairplay Awards list was hoping to cheekily transfer some of those points, only to be reminded that one of those tables doesn't really account for anything.

Fate isn't in their hands but the least the Punjab Kings can do to further their playoff bid is to snap their losing rut and win tonight. It'll only take them up to 15 points, leaving them watching both games tomorrow very closely.

All hands wanting a shake will leave the venue obliged.