In what could have been a comfortable win and a chance to rise up to the 4th spot in the points table, Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) failed to chase 127 runs against Kings XI Punjab (KXIP) and ended up losing the game by a margin of 12-runs. It was, indeed, one of the most dramatic matches in the concurrent edition of IPL and one of the perfect instances that showed how unpredictable the game of cricket can be. Speaking on the narrow defeat at the hands of KL Rahul’s men, SRH skipper, David Warner felt that the team ‘took off the pedal’ post the first six overs when they were cruising at 52/0.
“Yeah, it does. Our bowlers did a fantastic job to restrict them. After the start we got, we took our foot off the pedal,” Warner said in the post-match interview.
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Chasing 127 in 20 overs was looking like a walk in the park for the Sunrisers, considering the duo of David Warner (35) and Jonny Bairstow (19) were paving the way with their boundaries. Warner mentioned that the aggressive approach was to dominate the swing bowling and to create pressure onto KXIP bowlers.
“Felt on that wicket it was going to get tougher once the spin came into it. For us, it was about trying to apply pressure up front, negate the swing bowling, but obviously, we did not get across the line,” said the 33-year-old.
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Once the openers were dismissed, the required run-rate kept on piling and the wickets started to crumble for SRH. With 66 runs needed off 72 balls and 8 wickets in hand, it still appeared as an easy triumph for the Men in Orange.
The middle-order comprising Manish Pandey (15, 29b), Abdul Samad (7, 5b), and Vijay Shankar (26, 27b) took the game pretty deep, but their dismissals post the 16th over just worsened the case for SRH. With 17 runs needed in 12 deliveries, the duo of Jason Holder (7) and Priyam Garg (3) tried to tonk big hits but in vain. Eventually, SRH were bowled out for 114 runs.
Our bowlers executed the plans well: David Warner
SRH’s bowling department was spot-on throughout the first innings as they kept on building the pressure and grabbing wickets at regular intervals.
Rashid Khan, was once again, the topmost performer from the bowling unit. The leggie got the wood on KXIP skipper KL Rahul (27) and Deepak Hooda (0) and ended with figures of 4-0-14-2.
In the pace department, yorker-specialist T Natarajan (0/23) came up with an economical exhibition and was supported by all-rounder Jason Holder (2/27), who got the wood on Chris Gayle (20) and Chris Jordan (7).
Sandeep Sharma (2/29), with his swinging deliveries, was successful in dismissing Mandeep Singh (17) and Glenn Maxwell (12) while Khaleel Ahmed (0/31) was expensive among the lot.
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Warner credited his bowlers for restricting a solid-batting lineup like KXIP to 126/7 in 20 overs.
“They bowled well with the new ball. Didn’t get all the wickets upfront but we brought it back well. Today our bowlers executed the plans well, very happy with them.”
SRH are now at the sixth spot in the points table with 4 wins in 11 matches, 8 points, and an NRR of +0.029. Three more matches remain before their league matches come to an end. For a spot in the top four, they would have to win all their games and at the same time watch out for the performances of KXIP, KKR, and RR, as they could pose a hurdle in their way.
Warner concluded but not before he mentioned SRH’s approach for the coming games, “Just have to forget this game and move forward.”
Up next, the Hyderabad-based franchise will take on the Shreyas Iyer-captained Delhi Capitals (DC) on October 27 in Dubai.
