It was a captain's knock from Shikhar Dhawan and he finished it off with a six to remain unbeaten on 99 but his heroic knock was not good enough for Punjab Kings to avert a eight-wicket loss to Sunrisers Hyderabad in the IPL match at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium in Hyderabad today.

In chase of a 144-run target, Hyderabad lost Harry Brook, out castled by a slower one from Arshdeep Singh. The pressure from Punjab saw Mayank Agarwal perish next, trying to up the tempo.

Rahul Tripathi and skipper Aiden Markram consolidated by building a partnership and then accelerated. Tripathi in particular went after the bowling to remain unbeaten on 48-ball 74, hitting 10 fours and three sixes. Markram at the other end struck 37 off 21 during an unbroken 100-run third-wicket partnership as the duo secured the win with 17 deliveries to spare.

Earlier, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Marco Jansen gave Hyderabad the perfect start with the former getting Prabhsimran Singh out leg-before with the first ball of the innings. Jansen accounted for two Matthew Short and Jitesh Sharma cheaply as Punjab were three down for 22. Leg-spinner Mayank Markande then weaved his magic as the likes of Sam Curran, Shahrukh Khan failed to deliver.

Dhawan was only on 47 when Nathan Ellis became Mayank Markande's fourth victim with the score on 88 for 9. The skipper was not in the mood to give up and powered Natarajan for a couple sixes in the 16th over to take the score past 100. He kept taking his chance and produced 17 runs off a Umran Malik over. Bhuvneshwar Kumar dropped him in the 19th over off his own bowling and Dhawan kept finding the ropes before taking Punjab Kings to 143 for 9. His partnership with number 10 Mohit Rathee produced 55 runs in the last five overs, Rathee scoring just one of those runs.

Dhawan's 99 came off 66 deliveries, laced with 12 fours and five sixes.

Courtesy of the win, Hyderabad got their first points on the board.