HY­DER­ABAD – Nicholas Pooran con­tin­ued his prepa­ra­tion for next month’s Twen­ty20 World Cup with an­oth­er scin­til­lat­ing cameo, but he emerged on the los­ing side as his Luc­know Su­per Gi­ants crashed to a hum­bling 10-wick­et de­feat to Sun­ris­ers Hy­der­abad in the In­di­an Pre­mier League.

The left-han­der, who is ex­pect­ed to car­ry West In­dies’ bat­ting hopes in the June 1-29 tour­na­ment in the Caribbean and Unit­ed States, struck an un­beat­en 48 from just 26 balls to help pro­pel his side up to 165 for four af­ter they chose to bat first at the Ra­jiv Gand­hi In­ter­na­tion­al Sta­di­um on Wednes­day.

Pooran, a for­mer West In­dies white-ball cap­tain, played a key role in the most pro­duc­tive stand of the in­nings, putting on 99 for the fifth wick­et with Ayush Badoni whose top score of 55 re­quired 30 de­liv­er­ies and in­clud­ed nine fours.

En­ter­ing with Su­per Gi­ants wan­der­ing on 57 for three at the end of the 10th over, Pooran belt­ed half-dozen fours and a six to re­vi­talise the in­nings.

Pooran has now gath­ered 363 runs at an av­er­age of 60, in the cur­rent cam­paign.

Open­ers Travis Head (89 not out) and Ab­hishek Shar­ma (75 not out) then spoiled any hopes of a Su­per Gi­ants win with un­beat­en half-cen­turies as Sun­ris­ers chased down their tar­get with more than half of the overs re­main­ing.

Aus­tralian Head lashed eight fours and eight six­es in a stun­ning 30-ball knock to notch his fourth half-cen­tu­ry of the sea­son and sur­pass 500 runs (533) while Ab­hishek count­ed eight fours and half-dozen six­es off 28 de­liv­er­ies to pass 400 runs (401).

CMC

Brief Scores: Luc­know Su­per Gi­ants 165/4 in 20 overs (Ayush Badoni 55 not out, Nicholas Pooran 48 not out; Bhu­vnesh­war Ku­mar 2-12) lost to Sun­ris­ers Hy­der­abad 167 for no loss in 9.4 overs (Travis Head 89 not out, Ab­hishek Shar­ma 75 not ot) by 10 wick­ets