Match Details
Arya- A target of 203 was always going to be a tall ask for the Sunrisers Hyderabad. However they had a chance if the opening duo of Abhishek Sharma and Kane Williamson got them off to a flying start. Abhishek Sharma continued his good form striking some delightful blows up front to keep the scoring rate under check. While Williamson played the 2nd fiddle, Abhishek Sharma was at his fluent best racing off to 39 in 24 deliveries before Mukesh Choudhary turned the match around with back to back wickets of Abhishek Sharma and Rahul Tripathi.
Abhishek Sharma was holed out in a bid to continue the big shots while Rahul Tripathi was cramped for room and guided one short of a length delivery straight to the short third man fielder. Rahul Tripathi’s wicket certainly made a huge difference, especially due to the fact that he has been in stupendous form in the tournament. From there on, it was Aiden Markram who joined Williamson in the middle and tried to resurrect the chase.
The two wickets did bring the run flow down but the duo was batting sensibly and was finding the odd boundaries which kept the target in check. It was Mitchell Santner who accounted for Aiden Makram in the 10th over. Nicholas Pooran joined his skipper in the middle and tried to keep the required rate in control. Both continued to find the boundaries whenever the required rate crept up but the target was a bit too much in the end.
It was Dwayne Pretorious who bagged the golden wicket of Williamson which again put CSK firmly in control of the match. Williamson couldn’t quite time the slog sweep and was struck plumb in front. Shashank Singh came into the middle and unlike the other day when he took apart Lockie Ferguson, he struggled for timing a bit and only managed to score 16 of 15 deliveries when the required rate was nearing the 14-15 mark.
Nicholas Pooran still kept SRH in the game with a blistering knock. He smashed some lusty blows but didn’t quite get the support at the other end, he would have liked. The last over went for 24 runs but with 38 runs required it didn’t matter much. He took on Mukesh Choudhary who was on a hat-trick during the match. The unbeaten knock of 64 couldn’t quite get them over the line but it will certainly help them when it comes to net run rate.
Earlier in the day it was the SRH skipper Kane Williamson who won the toss and opted to field and that proved to be a disastrous decision in end just due to the sheer brilliance of the CSK opening duo Ruturaj Gaikwad and Devon Conway. Gaikwad was in sublime touch right from the word go and played some classical shots. He took on the youngster Umran Malik and gave some tap to some of his full and fast deliveries.
He was bowling consistently at over 145-150 and despite that Gaikwad was timing the ball so so well. Conway played the anchor’s role to start off and then took a toll in the final few overs. A partnership of 187 runs was the highest opening stand for CSK in the history of IPL and it eventually took their side over the 200 mark.