SRH won their first match of the season and opened their points account as the experienced players like Warner, Bairstow, Williamson, Bhuvi and Rashid delivered.
PERFORMERS OF THE DAY
SUN RISERS HYDERABAD Bat: Johnny Bairstow 53(48) David Warner 45(33) Bowl: Rashid Khan 4-0-14-3 Bhubaneswar Kumar 4-0-25-2
DELHI CAPITALS Bat: Shikhar Dhawan 34(31) Bowl: Kagiso Rabada 4-0-21-2 Amit Mishra 4-0-35-2
AS IT HAPPENED
Delhi won the toss and chose to field. Hyderabad started cautiously as Warner and Bairstow looked determined not to play any rash shots. After the powerplay, SRH were 38/0.
Mishra dismissed Warner and Manish in two successive overs to put the pressure on the SRH middle order. But Williamson, their new inclusion in the playing 11 yesterday, rose to the occasion and played a quick 41 run innings.
Bairstow didn’t look at his fluent best yesterday and got dismissed as he tried to take on Rabada. A couple of shots from the debutant Abdul Samad took the total to 163 at the close of the innings. The total looked 10-15 runs below par.
Hyderabad doing what they do best
Hyderabad won their maiden cup in 2016 on the back of some match winning bowling performances. The season saw them defend even meagre totals with ease. Something similar was at display yesterday.
Prithvi Shaw, the hero of the last match went cheaply as Bhuvi picked his first wicket of the season. Dhawan tried to play the anchor role but perished to Rashid Khan’s class. Iyer looked very unsettled in the middle. He scored 17 off 21 balls to push the required run rate above 12 RPO.
Hetmeyer lit some hope in the Delhi dugout by smashing two back-to-back sixes in Khaleel’s over but Bhuvi didn’t let the West-Indian stay at the crease any further. Delhi kept losing wickets at regular intervals which never allowed things to settle. In the last 5overs, they managed just 43 runs and lost 4 wickets.
Sunrisers Hyderabad won the match by 15 runs.
Rashid Khan was adjudged the Man of the Match for his brilliant 4 overs in which he gave just 14 runs and took 3 crucial wickets (Iyer, Dhawan, Pant).
SRH PLUGGING IN HOLES
SRH lost their first 2 matches as their star bowlers, Bhuvaneshwar and Rashid failed to put pressure on the opposition. This was not the case last night as both of them produced sublime performances to get their team home.
DC – NOT MUCH TO WORRY ABOUT?
Yes Delhi lost last night in a chase that they could’ve pulled off, but it was only their first loss of the season. The top order got runs, albeit not at the rate that they wanted, but there seems no reason to panic, just as yet.
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