The Sunrisers Hyderabad defeated the Chennai Super Kings by 6 wickets in the Indian Premier League at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium in Hyderabad on Friday. It was the team’s second successive win at home which puts their record at 2-2 through 4 games in the season.
CSK are also at 2-2, losing their second game in a row after winning their first two clashes. The Super Kings were without Mustafizur Rahman, who had returned to Bangladesh to sort out his US visa for the upcoming T20 World Cup. Sri Lankan Matheesha Pathirana was also out with an injury, depleting Chennai’s fast bowling unit further.
It should be noted that last week, Hyderabad used a red-soil pitch that produced 277 and 246 runs respectively for each innings. Friday’s pitch however was much slower and Sunrisers’ fast bowlers were able to take advantage by bowling a number of cutters into it. This ended up limiting CAK to 165 for 5 in their innings.
The Sunrisers then got off to a hot start in their innings, smashing 78 for just 1 wicket in the powerplay. CSK had a chance early to get a wicket early but Moeen Ali dropped Head off the second delivery bowled by Deepak Chahar. After that it was mayhem as Abhishek Sharma scored a blistering 37 of those runs, off just 12 balls. He hit listless Mukesh Chaudhary, playing his first game, for 27 runs in one over. This included two fours and three sixes.
Aiden Markram then came to the crease and anchored the chase with a 36-ball 50. His 60-run stand with opener Travis Head (31 off 24 balls) for the second wicket was integral in getting the Sunrisers well ahead of the asking rate. There wasn’t much pressure on the Sunrisers in the second half of their innings, needing just 59 runs from the final 10 overs with eight wickets in hand.
Markram couldn’t take his team all the way home though, getting out to Moeen Ali (2/23) via LBW. Hyderabad didn’t have to panic, needing just 34 runs in their last 5 overs. Ali picked up another LBW decision, in the form of Shahbaz Ahmed (18) but in the end it was in vain. Heinrich Klaasen (10 not out) and Nitish Kumar Reddy (14 not out) took SRH home.
The silver lining for the Chennai Super Kings was Shivam Dube’s 45 off just 24 balls that gave their innings some emphasis near the end. He was able to hit two four and four sixes on a pitch that no other batsmen from Chennai seemed to be able to get their timing on. The next highest scorer was Ajinkya Rahane who scored a slow 35 off 30 balls.
It was a good all-round bowling effort for the Sunrisers, with five bowlers picking up a wicket apiece. Bhuvneshwar Kumar found some early swing and was rewarded with his first wicket of the tournament when New Zealand’s Rachin Ravindra top-edged a pull to mid-on in the fourth over. From there the innings never really got going for CSK as they seemed to lose a wicket everytime they were starting to look dangerous. The first ball of the eighth over removed Gaikwad who mistimed a loft and holed out to long-on for 26 off 21 balls off Shahbaz Ahmed.
Dube entered from there but just when he was getting the boundaries he fell to bring the score to 3-119 from 13.4 overs. Rahane was caught out a few overs later and it was left to Ravindra Jadeja and Daryll Mutchel to get CSK to a respectable total. Dhoni came out to cheers from the crowd but only faced 2 balls for his one run.
Ultimately the 165 wasn’t anywhere close to being a good enough target against a solid Sunrisers batting lineup.
Next up for CSK will be the Kolkata Knight Riders on Monday night at home. The team will be looking to bounce back from the back-to-back losses.
SRH will go on PBKS on Tuesday where they will look to get their first road win of the season.
