Branded as one of the weakest attacks in this season’s Indian Premier League, SunRisers Hyderabad’s bowlers banded together and fought hard to eke out a terrific victory at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium on Saturday, April 18.
Led by Nitish Reddy, SRH hit back strongly against the Chennai Super Kings batting unit, restricting the visiting side to 184/8 while defending 195 runs at home, in a game where nearly 80 per cent of the crowd supported the away side. CSK supporters turned Uppal yellow and made it a hostile atmosphere for the home side, which was put under pressure throughout the game with reverberating ‘CSK, CSK’ chants.
| SRH vs CSK Highlights | Scorecard |
Chasing 195, CSK started brightly and raced to 76 runs in the first six overs, threatening to take the game away early. However, the visitors lost steam after the powerplay as SRH’s bowlers produced a terrific collective effort, executing their plans to perfection against the likes of Matt Short, Dewald Brevis and Shivam Dube, and steadily dragging the game deeper.
Defending 18 runs off the final six balls, uncapped pacer Praful Hinge, who had already conceded 54 runs in his first three overs, nearly lost his nerve after bowling a waist-high no-ball on the third delivery of the over. With the pressure mounting and the crowd roaring behind CSK, Hinge came clutch, holding his nerve to deliver three excellent balls and restrict the opposition to 184/8 at the end of the 20th over.
It is not an understatement to say that CSK were running away with the game early on. Young Ayush Mhatre had given them a bright start, smashing 30 off just 13 balls and putting SRH immediately on the back foot. A hamstring injury in the fifth over, however, brought his momentum to a halt, and Mhatre ended up getting dismissed on the very next ball.
Mhatre’s wicket in the fifth over, followed by captain Ruturaj Gaikwad’s dismissal in the sixth, gave SRH the perfect opening to hit back, and hit back they did, choking the life out of the CSK innings.
Nitish Reddy deserves immense credit here for bowling his heart out against CSK. He bowled full and quick, mixing it up with the occasional sharp bouncer to keep the batters uncomfortable. Nitish’s intensity caught CSK by surprise, and the side ended up surrendering the key wickets of Sanju Samson and Ayush Mhatre to him.
Once the floodgates opened, SRH brought in pacers Sakib Hussain and Ehsan Malinga to tighten the grip through the middle overs. The duo bowled full and fast, consistently getting underneath the batswing of the CSK batters and making life increasingly difficult for the opposition. Once the ball started reversing after the 15th over, it became almost impossible for the CSK batters to score, as they were not able to deal with the sideways movement of the ball. Worse, they did not really pick up the slower balls as well, which were bowled into the pitch, denying any pace to the batters in the death overs.
Alongside the pacers came Shivang Kumar, the left-arm wrist-spinner from Madhya Pradesh, also known as India’s Noor Ahmad. Shivang’s constant googlies, drifting away from the right-hander’s bat, put a real brake on CSK’s scoring rate and forced them into errors.
Malinga finished with figures of 4-0-19-3, Sakib returned 4-0-32-1, while Shivang registered figures of 3-0-18-1, including the key wicket of Dewald Brevis, who was dismissed for 0 off 4 balls.
CSK never really recovered from that collapse and eventually stuttered to 184/8 in their 20 overs.
At this time, it probably needs to be highlighted again that SRH were called one of the thinnest bowling attacks at the start of the season. And they probably are. Just that it once again was proven that even on a non-competitive deck, Indian uncapped bowlers are good enough to trouble world class hitters if they are given a solid plan.
On Saturday, the plan was simple. Bowled with good zip and try to hit the top of off stump. Show good intent. And when the time came, execute your yorkers. And that’s all it took to down CSK today. Credit must be given to the SRH management – especially Varun Aaron who was constantly in the ears of the bowlers, guiding them from the sidelines.
CSK LOSE, BUT GETTING BETTER BY THE DAY
Chennai Super Kings had gained momentum after winning back-to-back games at home, but their train was halted once again as they failed to show bravery with the bat at the Rajiv Gandhi Uppal Stadium on Saturday.
The batting effort failed to back up the bowling unit, which has been on the money for three consecutive matches this season. On the day, CSK started well against Abhishek Sharma and Travis Head with a familiar off-spin plan, one that we have seen throughout the T20 World Cup.
‘Travishek’ struggled for the first two overs of spin, which got Ruturaj Gaikwad a little greedy. The CSK captain made the mistake of bowling Matt Short for his third over inside the powerplay, a move that produced results no one in yellow would have liked.
Abhishek cut loose and smashed him for 25 runs, bringing SRH’s batting right back on track.
CSK felt the full fury of Abhishek, who raced to his fifty off just 15 balls. Just when it looked like SRH would race away to 230-250 runs, CSK hit back with wickets in quick succession in the final over of the powerplay, dismissing Travis Head and Ishan Kishan.
Head hit a rank full toss straight to mid-off, while Kishan got tempted by a slot ball, only to lose his shape and sky it straight to Ruturaj Gaikwad.
The mood of the game, however, changed in the final ball of the eighth over, when Jamie Overton bowled to Abhishek. On the final delivery of the over, Overton beat Abhishek and the ball was pouched by Sanju Samson behind the stumps. Samson appealed, only to find no interest from either the bowler or the umpire. As the duo quickly looked to move on, Samson forced the captain to take a DRS review, which found a feather edge on Abhishek’s outside edge.
SRH, from 75/0, were suddenly 93/3 in the space of 12 balls.
After the dismissal of the top order, Heinrich Klaasen anchored the innings, but was not able to do a lot of damage due to disciplined bowling from the CSK unit. Jamie Overton was the real hero here, bowling rockets at 150 kmph and hitting the batters hard from a good length.
Where the CSK bowlers really shone was in the death overs, where they executed that round-the-wicket yorker plan against the SRH batters, giving away less than 20 runs in the last three overs.
Liam Livingstone, brought in as an Impact Sub, played a horror innings, getting dismissed on the final delivery for a score of just 1 run off 5 balls.
However, the CSK middle order was not able to live up to the bowling standards as they threw away their chase of 195 runs.
After the game, CSK remained in seventh spot in the IPL table, while SRH moved up to fourth spot, with three wins from six matches.
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