Washington Sundar’s allround effort went in vain as Sunrisers Hyderabad made heavy weather of a below-par chase to go down to Delhi Capitals by 7 runs, their third defeat in a row, on Monday.

Sundar and Bhuvneshwar Kumar exposed the batting frailties of Capitals in the first half of the game to restrict them to 144/9 after David Warner opted to bat.

But an inexplicable batting approach in which SRH never looked to dominate led to their downfall as they were restricted to 137/6. Having lost half of their side for 85 runs in 14.1 overs, SRH’s recovery was led by Heinrich Klaasen (31; 19b, 3×4, 1×6) and Sundar who came up with 15-ball 24 not out (3x4s).

But it proved not enough as Anrich Nortje (4-0-33-2) dismissed his South African temmate, before Mukesh Kumar bowled a terrific last over to defend 13 runs to hand Delhi a narrow yet thrilling second consecutive win of the season. Delhi, who began the season with a five-match losing streak, however stayed at the bottom of the table with four points.

BRIEF SCORES

CAPITALS 144/9 (Manish 34 off 27, Axar 34 off 34, Marsh 25 off 15, Warner 21 off 20; Sundar 3/28, Bhuvneshwar 2/11) beat SUNRISERS 137/6 (Mayank 49 off 39, Klassen 31 off 19, Sundar 24* off 15; Axar 2/21, Nortje 2/33) by 7 runs.