A fine bowling performance in the death overs followed by Abhishek Sharma‘s early blitz and Aiden Markram’s half-century helped Sunrisers Hyderabad to a six-wicket win. Sunrisers smashed 78 for 1 in just the powerplay, with Abhishek Sharma clattering 37 of those runs, off just 12 balls.
Abhishek Sharma played a major role when SRH hammered 277 runs against MI once again showed his prowess and growth as an opening batter for Sunrisers Hyderabad.
Pitch and Toss
One side is slightly bigger then the other. Both square boundaries are sub-70-m, the straight boundary is slightly bigger. It’s a different surface tonight, but there are a lot of runs. Some visible cracks, but it’s not going to affect the game. The captain winning the toss would like to bat first. Even 200 on this pitch isn’t a safe score and the batting team will be disappointed at their effort, reckon Brian Lara and Samuel Badree, in their pitch report.
Sunrisers Hyderabad skipper Pat Cummins won the toss and chose to bowl. Unwell Mayank Agarwal was replaced by Nitish Reddy as T Natarajan makes a comeback. Ruturaj Gaikwad the CSK skipper made three changes in the squad making way for Moeen Ali, Maheesh Theekshana and Mukesh Chowdhary for Mustafizur Rehman , Matheesha Pathirana and Sameer Rizvi
A fighting powerplay by CSK .
Ruturaj Gaikwad and Rachin Ravindra made a steady start to CSK innings, managing 25 runs off the first three overs without taking many risks. There was a possibility of running Ravindra out on 11 when he attempted a quick single, but Aiden Markram missed the stumps with his direct attempt.
However, that didn’t prove too costly as the southpaw was eventually dismissed in the next over, top-edging a length delivery angling away to Markram at mid on. A couple of balls later, Bhuvneshwar could have even accounted for Rahane’s dismissal when the batter got a leading edge that nearly carried back to the bowler. Nonetheless, Gaikwad went on the offensive against Bhuvneshwar and Pat Cummins later in the powerplay to help the side to 48 for 1.
Shivam Dube does Dube things
Shivam Dube, though, got cracking immediately against spin. He launched the third ball he faced, from Shahbaz, for six and scored 25 off his first ten balls, from Shahbaz and leg spinner Mayank Markande. Dube also lined up T Natarajan, who was returning from injury, for back-to-back sixes before Cummins stopped him on 45 off 24 balls. The Sunrisers captain hid a slower short ball away from Dube’s swinging arc and had him popping a catch to backward point.
In possibly what was the brightest period of play for CSK on the day, Shivam Dube and Ajinkya Rahane put on a 65-run stand in only 39 balls. Gaikwad, after getting a good start, holed out to the long fielder in the eight over, leaving the Mumbai duo to do the work through the middle overs.
Dube took the mantle of the aggressor and got going by taking Mayank Markande down in a 15-run ninth over. And then three overs later, he smashed back-to-back deliveries off T Natarajan for sixes over the deep mid wicket region. He eventually fell mistiming a pull off a slower delivery from Cummins to backward point. Nonetheless, his 24-ball 45 gave the pace CSK needed to their innings going into the death overs. Rahane, who played a fine second fiddle in the partners, also departed in the next over, undone by Jaydev Unadkat’s slower delivery.
Stifling in the death CSK as SRH bowlers strangle them to 165 for 5 after 20 overs.
CSK could score only 50 runs in their last seven overs. Cummins, Natarajan and Unadkat kept taking pace off the ball. CSK’s power-hitters failed to manufacture pace for themselves on the night. Rahane was undone by a 105kph slower delivery while Mitchell fell to an on-pace Natarajan delivery that stopped in the pitch. Ravindra Jadeja’s down-the-track swatted four off a 111kph cutter from Unadkat was only an aberration.
The decibel levels soared when MS Dhoni came out to bat at No.7, ahead of Moeen Ali, with just three balls left in CSK’s innings. But even he could manage only one off two balls. Taking advantage of the track that was holding up a bit, SRH pacers employed the length-delivery tactic.
Following the dismissal of the set pair of Dube and Rahane in quick succession, the incoming batters struggled to come to terms with the pace of the pitch while they attempted to accelerate, especially Ravindra Jadeja who clawed his way to an unbeaten 23-ball 31. There wasn’t much support from Daryl Mitchell (11-ball 13) and MS Dhoni (2-ball 1*) either as CSK managed to add only 51 runs in the last seven overs and were restricted to 165 for 5.
Travis Head, Abhishek Sharma tear up the powerplay as the ended the contest itself in the powerplay.
Before that, the assault was started by Travis Head though, who uppercut Deepak Chahar for a six in the first over. The pacer could have had the opener dismissed off the second ball of the innings but Moeen Ali put down a catch at first slip. He slowed down briefly after Abhishek Sharma’s dismissal, but in the last over of the powerplay, along with Aiden Markram, cracked 12 runs to help SRH to 78 for 1 even before the field restrictions could be lifted.
Markram steadies the chase
With nearly half the target chased down by the end of the powerplay, SRH didn’t need to resort to riskier methods. On the contrary, CSK kept changing their options, utilizing as many as seven options in order to find some success. While the spinners managed to slow the scoring rate, they couldn’t pull the game back in the visitors’ favour. Maheesh Theekshana struck in the 10th over when Head swept a ball straight to the backward square leg fielder, but Markram ensured there wasn’t any panic.
He worked the ball around gaps, was active to pick the twos and even went down the ground against Jadeja once and stroked him for a six. He brought up his half century off 35 balls by bunting a Moeen Ali delivery down to long on for a single and soon after fell while attempting to reverse sweep the office and getting struck on the pads. After Head and Abhishek departed, Markram controlled the chase with a half-century.
No Late twist in the tale as SRH romped home by 6 wickets
Moeen trapped Markram (50) and Shahbaz (18) lbw with the old ball, but it was too late for CSK. Sunrisers had already inflicted irreparable damage in the powerplay.
For a brief period though after Markram’s dismissal, SRH batters did come under a bit of pressure, especially Shahbaz Ahmed, who was promoted to number 4. A string of dot deliveries forced him to go for the big shots. He did hit a six but much like Markram, was trapped leg before by Moeen while attempting to reverse sweep. Nonetheless, Heinrich Klaasen ensured there was no panic and guided SRH to their second win of the season
CSK had scored 30 runs fewer in their powerplay and their batting machine was shut down in the slog overs too. Sunrisers eventually completed their chase with six wickets in hand and nearly two overs to spare, Aiden Markram doing the heavy lifting with a 36-ball 50.
Presentations and Road Ahead
Ruturaj Gaikwad the loosing skipper said : I think to be honest, it was a slow pitch, They bowled well in the back-end, kept the game in control and didn’t allow us to capitalize. I thought we did well in the beginning (of the match), but they came back well later. It was a black soil pitch, so we expected the pitch to be slower, but it became slower and slower, and they used the boundary size well.
We conceded too many in the batting PP, one dropped catch and one expensive over. Still, to take them to the 19th over was a great effort. I thought anything around 170-175 would’ve been a good total for us. There was a bit of dew towards the end, but Moeen got the ball to spin even in the 15th-16th over. So I don’t think the pitch changed a lot during the course of the game.
Pat Cummins the winning skipper said : Different soil. Slowed up a little bit as the game went on. Shivam was hitting it well against the spin. Thought we’ll take chance with off-cutters. First thing is always to get the points. Wouldn’t want to be bowling to him (Abhishek) and Trav Head at the top. Crowd was crazy tonight. When MS walked out, it was as loud as I’ve ever heard.