Hyderabad seals IPL playoffs spot with Gujarat after beating Chennai

CHENNAI, India (AP) — Sunrisers Hyderabad qualified for the Indian Premier League playoffs after Ishan Kishan anchored them to a five-wicket win over Chennai Super Kings on Monday.

Hyderabad's win also ensured Gujarat Titans a place in the four-team playoffs. Defending champion and league leader Royal Challengers Bengaluru were already through, meaning only one place remained to be filled in the knockouts.

Five-time champion Chennai was still in contention but needing to beat Gujarat in its last league match on Thursday and other results to go in its favor.

Hyderabad, playing its first game after a week’s rest, cruised to 181-5 with an over to spare as Kishan scored a breezy 70 off 47 balls and Heinrich Klaasen mastered spin with a knock of 47 off 26 deliveries.

Chennai made 180-7, struggling against the variations of the Hyderabad fast bowlers: Captain Pat Cummins led with 3-28 and complemented by Sakib Hussain's 2-34 and Eshan Malinga's 1-26.

“Really satisfying, pretty tough wicket to bat,” Cummins said. “That partnership (between Kishan and Klaasen) was really tough. They just chose their matchups, and played some ridiculous shots.

"The real stuff (playoffs) starts now.”

Veteran Mahendra Singh Dhoni came to the stadium for the first time this season but he was still nursing a calf injury and sat out his team’s final home game in front of almost 35,000 fans.

Chennai's Sanju Samson started in a brisk fashion on the slow pitch, smashing five fours and a six off the first 11 balls he faced before Cummins found his outside edge in the third over.

Skipper Ruturaj Gaikwad labored for 21 balls to score 15 without a boundary before he, too, fell to Cummins, but Chennai was well served by Dewald Brevis (44) and Kartik Sharma (32) scoring at a healthy rate in the middle overs.

However, they were overshadowed by Hyderabad's Kishan and Klaasen, who was dropped on 18. The pair combined for 75 for the third wicket until Klaasen was stumped. But Kishan batted on to six runs from victory.

“We were in the game until the second-last over,” Gaikwad said. “Everyone played their heart out today.”

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Sunrisers Hyderabad's Pat Cummins, second left, celebrates the wicket of Chennai Super Kings' captain Ruturaj Gaikwad with with teammates during the Indian Premier League cricket match between Chennai Super Kings' and Sunrisers Hyderabad in Chennai, India, Monday, May 18, 2026. (AP Photo)

Chennai Super Kings' Dewald Brevis plays a shot during the Indian Premier League cricket match between Chennai Super Kings' and Sunrisers Hyderabad in Chennai, India, Monday, May 18, 2026. (AP Photo)

Sunrisers Hyderabad's Heinrich Klaasen plays a shot during the Indian Premier League cricket match between Chennai Super Kings' and Sunrisers Hyderabad in Chennai, India, Monday, May 18, 2026. (AP Photo)

Chennai Super Kings' wicketkeeper Sanju Samson celebrates after stumping Sunrisers Hyderabad's Heinrich Klaasen during the Indian Premier League cricket match between Chennai Super Kings' and Sunrisers Hyderabad in Chennai, India, Monday, May 18, 2026. (AP Photo)

Sunrisers Hyderabad's Ishan Kishan plays a shot during the Indian Premier League cricket match between Chennai Super Kings' and Sunrisers Hyderabad in Chennai, India, Monday, May 18, 2026. (AP Photo)

KINSHASA, Congo (AP) — An American doctor in Congo is among the newly confirmed cases in an outbreak of a rare variant of the Ebola virus with no approved vaccines or therapeutics, Congolese officials said Monday. Deaths have surpassed 100 in two provinces and details emerged about the government's delayed response to the outbreak.

The doctor is among the cases in Bunia, the capital of Ituri province, said Dr. Jean-Jacques Muyembe, medical director of the Congolese National Institute of Bio-Medical Research.

Seven Americans, including one who tested positive late Sunday, are being transported to Germany for monitoring, Dr. Satish Pillai of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a call with reporters. Pillai said the American developed symptoms over the weekend.

CDC officials did not immediately respond to follow-up questions about how the confirmed case or other people may have been exposed to Ebola, or to which facility or facilities in Germany they are being taken, or about what the case patient’s current condition is.

The World Health Organization on Sunday declared the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern. As of Monday, there were over 300 suspected cases and 118 deaths in Ituri and North Kivu provinces and two deaths in neighboring Uganda.

The Bundibugyo strain spread undetected for at least a few weeks, health experts and aid workers said. Cases have now been confirmed in Bunia, North Kivu's rebel-held capital of Goma, Mongbwalu, Butembo and Nyakunde.

“Because early tests looked for the wrong strain of Ebola, we got false negatives and lost weeks of response time,” said Matthew M. Kavanagh, director of the Georgetown University Center for Global Health Policy and Politics. “We are playing catch-up against a very dangerous pathogen.”

He criticized the Trump administration's earlier decision to withdraw from the WHO and make deep cuts in foreign aid. “When you pull billions out of the WHO and dismantle front line USAID programs, you gut the exact surveillance system meant to catch these viruses early,” he said.

Congo's health minister, Samuel Roger Kamba, said the government was opening three treatment centers. The WHO said it sent a team of experts and supplies.

Congo has said the first person died from the virus on April 24 in Bunia, and the body was repatriated to the Mongbwalu health zone, a mining area with a large population.

“That caused the Ebola outbreak to escalate,” Kamba has said.

When another person fell ill on April 26, samples were sent to Kinshasa for testing, according to the Africa Centers for Disease Control. On May 5, the WHO was alerted of about 50 deaths in Mongbwalu, including four health workers. The first case was confirmed on May 14.

Samples from Bunia were initially tested for the more common Ebola strain, Zaire, Congolese officials said. They came back negative, said Dr. Richard Kitenge, the Health Ministry Incident Manager for Ebola.

The first confirmation of Ebola came on May 14, and the Bundibugyo strain was confirmed the next day. Now more resources are being rushed to the region.

“The situation is quite worrying and is evolving pretty quickly,” Esther Sterk with the Medecins Sans Frontieres aid group told the AP. “It was detected quite late.” But she said that was often the case with outbreaks of Ebola, which has similar symptoms to other tropical diseases.

On Sunday CBS News reported at least six Americans have been exposed to Ebola in Congo, citing anonymous sources in international aid organizations. The AP has not been able to independently verify the others.

U.S. health officials on Sunday said the risk to Americans was low.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has issued travel advisories urging Americans traveling in Congo and Uganda to avoid people with symptoms like fever, muscle pain and rash. The CDC also said it was imposing "appropriate measures for identifying individuals with any symptoms” at ports of entry.

Ebola is highly contagious and can be contracted via bodily fluids such as vomit, blood or semen. The disease it causes is rare but severe and often fatal.

The Bundibugyo virus is a rare variant. Although more than 20 Ebola outbreaks have taken place in Congo and Uganda since 1976, this is only the third time that the Bundibugyo virus has been detected.

The U.S. CDC says it causes fever, headache, muscle pain, weakness, diarrhea, vomiting, stomach pain and unexplained bleeding or bruising.

Dr. Gabriel Nsakala, a professor of public health who has been involved in past Ebola responses, said Congo has extensive experience managing the outbreaks, but response efforts could be complicated by the rare strain.

The Bundibugyo virus was first detected in Uganda’s Bundibugyo district during a 2007-2008 outbreak that infected 149 people and killed 37. The second time was in 2012, in an outbreak in Isiro, Congo, where 57 cases and 29 deaths were reported.

The Africa CDC chief, Dr. Jean Kaseya, told Sky News on Sunday he is in “panic mode” due to a lack of medicines and vaccines, but some candidate treatments are anticipated in the coming weeks.

Ituri's Mongbwalu is in remote eastern Congo, with poor road networks more than 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) from the capital, Kinshasa.

Eastern Congo long has grappled with a humanitarian crisis and the threat of armed groups that have killed dozens and displaced thousands in Ituri in the past year.

“No one really has a full understanding of how serious this crisis is,” said a Bunia-based U.N. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly on the subject.

Staff have been asked to work from home and avoid physical contact and crowded areas, the official said, adding they were concerned about halting activities in a region that relies on humanitarian aid.

Ituri has over 273,00 displaced people, according to the U.N.

Rwanda closed its land border with Congo on Sunday. AP reporters tried to cross the border on Sunday and Monday morning but were told it was closed except for holders of international flight tickets. Rwandan authorities did not reply to a request for comment.

Pronczuk and McMakin reported from Dakar, Senegal. Associated Press writers Evelyne Musambi in Nairobi, Caitlin Kelly in Dakar, and Mike Stobbe in New York, contributed to this report.

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The Associated Press receives financial support for global health and development coverage in Africa from the Gates Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

Medical supplies are stacked inside a World Health Organization (WHO) warehouse in Nairobi, Kenya, Monday, May 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Jackson Njehia)

People wait to have their temperature taken in front of Kibuli Muslim Hospital in Kampala, Uganda, Saturday, May 16, 2026. (AP Photo/ Hajarah Nalwadda)

A woman wearing a protective mask sells fruit from a roadside stall in Bunia, Congo, Sunday, May 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Dirole Lotsima Dieudonne)

People wash their hands at the entrance to a hospital in Bunia, Congo, Sunday, May 17, 2026. (AP Photo/ Dirole Lotsima Dieudonne)

A general view is seen of Bunia where ebola outbreaks have been confirmed in Ituri province, Congo, Sunday, May 17, 2026. (AP Photo/ Dirole Lotsima Dieudonne)

A woman wearing a protective mask stands in the corridor of a hospital in Bunia, Congo, Sunday, May 17, 2026. (AP Photo/ Dirole Lotsima Dieudonne)