Led by Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma’s blazing knocks, Sunrisers Hyderabad handed Lucknow Super Giants a thumping defeat in a one-sided contest in Hyderabad on Wednesday. The duo Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma helped the side chase down 166 with 62 balls to spare, and significantly propelled their Net Run Rate, moving to the third spot on the points table. 30 of the 58 balls the duo faced were hit for boundaries as they secured their team a 10-wicket win.
Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma, who got to their fifties in 16 and 19 balls respectively, putting on a hundred between them inside the powerplay for the second time this IPL, both times the highest powerplay scores in all T20 cricket will be remembered for their explosive display on the day packing out opponents just for fun in a contest which proved to be rather a one sided affair as the Lucknow Team hardly allowed on the ground.
Pitch and Toss
“We are in Hyderabad and once more we are on pitch number 2 where 277 was scored. It has its own stardom. Boundary dimensions – there’s some good news for the bowlers as it is the centre pitch, 60-odd meters on either side and a pitch that the spinners won’t mind bowling. It feels like walking into a clay oven today. (The pitch) Extremely hard, really dry and you can feel the heat, still hot to touch. It has opened up tiny little cracks.
I would be surprised if it is a record breaking total type this evening. It is probably a 200 wicket, very fast outfield and not a lot of dew. The fast bowlers will use their cutters especially in the middle phase of the match. I believe whoever wins the toss would look to set the total,” reckon Matthew Hayden and Sanjay Manjrekar.
Lucknow Super Giants skipper KL Rahul won the toss and chose to bat first. Mohsin Khan missed out from the match and Quinton De Cock made a comeback in this match for Lucknow. Birthday Boy Pat Cummins bowling first made 2 changes in the squad bringing in Sanvir Singh and debutant VijayKanth Viyaskanth for Marco Jansen.
LSG top-order stuck in grapple-hold by Bhuvneshwar Kumar in the Powerplay.
Led by Bhuvneshwar Kumar’s fine spell upfront, well aided by Shahbaz Ahmed, SRH managed to restrict LSG to their lowest-ever powerplay score. The batters struggled to find timing and never had the rhythm to get going, losing two crucial wickets – Quinton de Kock and Marcus Stoinis – in this period.
However, it was with the ball that SRH set up the win. Bhuvneshwar Kumar led the way with figures of 4-0-12-2, conceding only singles, completely shutting down the LSG top order, A word about the fear surrounding the SRH batters first. It was that fear which, in part, prompted LSG to bat first.
And then they ran into Bhuvneshwar, who was unerring in his length and drew movement off the pitch. Quinton de Kock – 66 off 66 off Bhuvneshwar in T20 cricket overall – managed just 1 off 4 off him, those four balls inclusive of a near-dismissal and his wicket, caught superbly by Nitish Reddy at deep-square leg.
It was a sensational catch made to look easy as Reddy took it over his head, threw it back in the field of play, stepped out and came back to complete the catch, but Sanvir Singh soon outdid him with a low catch diving forward at mid-on to send back Marcus Stoinis. Bhuvneshwar ended the powerplay with 3-0-7-2. Add Shahbaz Ahmed’s 2-0-9-0 to that, and LSG had had their worst powerplay of the year: 27 for 2.
LSG stutter but fight back in the middle overs.
Krunal Pandya’s assault on Jaydev Unadkat, which included two sixes down the ground, allowed LSG to get some much-needed momentum in their innings. However, he didn’t find ample support from the other end. Rahul holed out to T Natarajan at long leg and soon after Krunal himself was run out while attempting a quick single. Unlike Bhuvneshwar, however, the other bowlers weren’t as threatening. Cummins rotated his resources well and LSG couldn’t find the flourish they were looking for.
IPL debutant, the Sri Lanka leg spinner V Viyaskanth, kept the lid on after the powerplay only for Krunal Pandya to inject some momentum into the innings by hitting Jaydev Unadkat for successive sixes, the tournament’s 999th and 1000th. The first one was an extraordinary straight hook to a head-high slower bouncer over long-on. Little did we know the shot would become a mere footnote by the time the night was done.
Aayush Badoni, Nicholas Pooran rescue LSG to 165 for 4 after 20 overs.
Badoni and Pooran stepped on the accelerator in the death overs and countered SRH’s plans of using the slower balls on the hard lengths by attacking the shorter part of the boundary. They couldn’t send any of those shots over the rope, including the last one which was superbly defended by Nitish Reddy at sweeper cover. Nonetheless, Badoni used some unconventional strokes and powered along to his fastest IPL half-century and in the company of Pooran, extended their partnership to 99 runs helping the side to a respectable total.
KL Rahul, 29 off 33, perished trying to hit the pace of Pat Cummins, and Krunal was run out by the SRH captain and birthday boy as he tried to steal a single when the boundaries were not coming. It had taken 9.1 overs for the first four of the innings, but Badoni and Pooran found the boundary regularly.
Badoni led the charge by moving around in the crease and manipulating the field, getting to a fifty in 28 balls. Pooran joined in towards the end, using the pace of T Natarajan and Cummins. Two of the quickest bowlers on display, Cummins and Natarajan, went for 97 between them.
Travis Head, Abhishek Sharma blow LSG away in the powerplay.
In the first eight balls of the run-chase, SRH were moving along at run-a-ball, far slower than their standards, and then Abhishek Sharma cut loose. Yash Thakur lost his line, and as the attack continued from both ends – as Travis Head and Abhishek have done for most of this season – LSG ran out of plans.
K Gowtham, who bowled an effective first over, was taken to the cleaners in his second, butchered for three sixes and a boundary. The duo exploded and hammered 99 runs in the next 28 balls, which killed the contest. Head, who led the assault, powered along to his joint-fastest half-century, reaching the mark in only 16 balls – his fourth fifty within the powerplay this season, most by any batter ever in IPL.
LSG tried to make use of the slow pitch by bowling K Gowtham’s offspin to the two left-hand openers, which was a sound-enough plan. With Head and Abhishek, though, plans hardly seem to matter. Travis Head pulled Gowtham away for four in the first over, and Abhishek took down Yash Thakur in the second.
Again, even Thakur seemed to be bowling to a sound plan: sweeper cover and deep-square leg, bowl into the pitch, but Abhishek pulled him in front of square. So he put two men back on the leg side, and Abhishek made room and carved him through point. By the time they had reached 25 in two overs, plans ceased to matter at all.
The onslaught continues as Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma chase down 164 in mere 9.4 overs.
Travis Head and Abhishek just picked their spots and sent the ball there no matter the pace on the ball, no matter the length, no matter the fields. All told, the ball took that journey to the boundary once every second ball. You can take your pick from among Travis Head’s kneel-down six into the sight screen, Abhishek’s languid pick-up over wide long-on off Badoni’s offspin, or his extra-cover drive for six to end the game…
But try as you may, you will struggle to find a shot more incredible than Head off-driving Ravi Bishnoi off the back foot for a huge six over long-off. Travis Head ended up with 89 off 30, and Abhishek, 75 off 28. Gowtham’s economy of 14.50 was the best among all the LSG bowlers.
The middle overs started with a six by Travis Head and the chase ended with a six by Abhishek Sharma. The two southpaw continued their relentless attack in the never-ending six-fest as SRH managed to post the highest-ever score within the first 10 overs in the IPL (playing two balls less). Badoni’s part-time off breaks were smashed for 19, Ravi Bishnoi was taken apart for 17, Naveen ul Haq bowled a few effective slower balls but was still carted away for 14. The chase was done and dusted in 58 balls.
With that win, SRH not only gave their NRR a boost but also knocked out Mumbai Indians from the qualification race.
Presentations and Road Ahead.
KL Rahul the loosing skipper said : Am lost for words. We have watched that kind of batting on tv. But this is unreal batting. Everything seemed to find the middle of the bat. Kudos to their skills. They have worked hard on their six hitting skills. They didn’t give us a chance to know what the pitch played in the second innings.
Was hard to stop them as they teed off from ball one. Once you are on the losing side, there are questions marks on the decisions taken. We were 40-50 runs short. When we lost wickets in the powerplay, we couldn’t get any momentum. Ayush and Nicky batted well to get us to 166. But even if we would have got 240, they could have chased it as well.
Pat Cummins the winning skipper said : (On did he change the pitch) Maybe Travis and Abhishek did. We just let them go, they are two guys who are very positive and I’m a bowler, it is tough for me to give them any inputs. (On Travis Head) He’s been like this for 2 years, he hits the tough areas, hits the middle a lot, might not be super conventional.
(On Abhishek Sharma) Just an incredible player of spin and pace. With just 2 fielders out, it is really difficult for the bowlers against them. (On where the game is headed) I think the scores have gone up, and when the wickets are good, it is tough to come up with answers against batters when they get going. The boys have had a fantastic season, but to win this with less than 10 overs played is unreal.
Travis Head was Player of the Match for his 89 runs said : Lot of fun today. Nice to get this done in 10 overs. Abhi and I have had a few partnerships like this. Just concentrate on getting in good positions, watch the ball hard and try to maximize the powerplay. (On his spin hitting) It is something I have been working on, it will be a big part in the Caribbean as well.
It is important to go 360 in the modern game. (On fearless cricket) The last 12 months, that’s how they wanted me to play in the Aussie team, and that’s what I’ve been told to do here as well. Nothing much that I have to change. (On Abhishek Sharma) I know how hard he works and how deep he thinks, his spin play is second to none. We compliment each other very well.
Nice to see him back amongst the runs after missing out the last couple of game. (On NRR) We didn’t think about it till the Timeout, but after that the boys came out and told us to score quickly. The crowd was exceptional tonight, that’s what we needed after losing the last two. I haven’t got many things over him, so that’s good to know that I have more runs than David Warner did in his first SRH season. We start again whenever we come out here for the next game.
Between both innings today, it feels like we got a classic microcosm of how the T20 game has evolved in the last few years. Gone are the days when you can play out powerplay with conservative strike rates, with the hopes of maximizing output in the death overs. The modern T20 cricketer believes in carnage, believes in clearing that front leg and whacking it to all parts of the ground. It is no longer about winning games, it is about obliterating oppositions with net run rates facing fatal consequences.
Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma made batting look easier than EA Cricket on amateur mode, as they devoured into the LSG bowlers, inflicting a brutal loss to the visitors. The first over went for just 8 runs, and that was the only joy LSG got the whole innings. Abhishek Sharma dispatched Thakur for four consecutive boundaries, and then Travis Head latched onto Gowtham, plundering 22 runs off it.
The Aussie batter scored a 16-ball fifty, as SRH finished the powerplay with 107 runs. Abhishek Sharma wasn’t too far behind, as he got a 19-ball fifty. The hitting never stopped even after the fifties, as both batters went hell for leather to help SRH chase down the target in less than 10 overs.
So the words ‘KL Rahul’, ‘strike rate’ and ‘intent’ will be discussed across sporting circles once again. But can’t take anything away from the way SRH obliterated this chase. We doubt many could achieve the strike rates that Abhishek Sharma and Travis Head are recording even while playing book cricket or hand cricket. Never before have so many runs ever been scored in the first 10 overs of an IPL game.
Both teams have long gaps ahead of their next outing. LSG will travel to Delhi to take on the Capitals on May 14 while Sunrisers Hyderabad will host Gujarat Titans on May 16.