IPL 2018: 5 instances when a dropped catch proved costly for an IPL franchise

1) Sunrisers Hyderabad vs Kolkata Knight Riders (24 May 2014)

Yusuf Pathan scored a 15 balls

half century

to help KKR jump to 2nd place in the points table.

The Kolkata Knight Riders took on Sunrisers Hyderabad in an away game on 18 May 2014 at Hyderabad, knowing they needed to win by a big margin to jump to 2nd place in the points table in order to get two chances to reach the finals of IPL 2014.

Put into bat by Gautam Gambhir, None of the Sunrisers Hyderabad's batsmen could convert their good starts as a result of which Sunrisers Hyderabad scored just 160 in their 20 overs.

Needing to chase down the 161 runs target in 15.2 overs to jump to 2nd place, Knight Riders were reduced to 55/2 in 7.3 overs when big hitter Yusuf Pathan who was having an ordinary tournament came into bat with Knight Riders needing 106 runs in 47 balls in order to jump to 2nd place in the points table.

Yusuf Pathan made his intentions clear from the 1st ball he faced, by hitting a big shot of Karn Sharma's delivery which was going straight into the hands of Anirudh Srikanth at wide long on. But much to the disappointment of Sunrisers Hyderabad, Anirudh Srikanth dropped the catch. Adding more salt to injury for Sunrisers Hyderabad was that Yusuf Pathan was once again dropped on 15 by Dale Steyn off the bowling of Parvez Rasool.

Yusuf Pathan made Sunrisers Hyderabad pay dearly for those two dropped catches as he went on to score the fastest fifty in IPL of just 15 balls and took a special liking to Dale Steyn by hitting the South African speedster for 26 runs in an over.

When Yusuf Pathan was finally dismissed for a mind-boggling 72 runs of just 22 balls which included 5 fours and 7 huge sixes, Knight Riders only needed 8 runs of just 9 balls to reach the 2nd place in the points table which they achieved it, thereby dumping Chennai Super Kings to 3rd place and even went on to win the IPL 2014 by defeating Kings XI Punjab in the final.