The Sunrisers Hyderabad annihilated Delhi Capitals in Dubai by 88 runs on the back of swashbuckling batting from the opening pair of David Warner and Wriddhiamn Saha followed by an insane spell of bowling from Rashid Khan where he yielded only seven runs for three wickets in four overs.
Touted as the team to beat this season, the Delhi Capitals looked a confused side on the field and in the end, were made to look like a side so unlike their performances in the season so far and the team management would hope that these defeats are not a sign of a team that peaked too early in the tournament.
Here are the best and the worst performers of tonight's game.
Induced back into the playing XI in place of an off-colour Jonny Bairstow, Saha fulfilled the purpose by showing intent from the word go. Saha has been a very underrated batsman and does not find a place in the playing XI regularly even after having an impressive record in the history of the league. He was in the mood to correct all that in the game against the Delhi Capitals as he stamped his authority on the Delhi’s bowling line-up which has shown impeccable potency so far in the tournament.
He was on the money from the first over and took on the best bowlers in the opposition lineup in the form of Anrich Nortje, Kagiso Rabada and Ravichandran Ashwin in the first three overs of the game. By the end of the third over, Saha had reached 21 off 9 balls with the help of five boundaries that was evident of the changes he had brought into the SRH’s top order and at that point, he was outsourcing David Warner which is a feat in itself.
Saha showed immense game awareness and decided to hold back when Warner started teeing off against the Delhi bowlers and took the mettle once again in the 10th over following Warner's dismissal in the 9th and carried on in the same dominating fashion in which he started his innings till the 15th over when he was rushed in by a short ball from Nortje after a 45-ball-87 that literally batted the Delhi Capitals out of the game.
David Warner was under pressure from problems that seemed to be insurmountable so far in the season. He has not had the worst IPL season as a batsman but the team had struggled to win games from situations that looked seemingly easy.
Having the clarity of the objectives of winning all three matches in order to be in the race for one spot among the top four teams of the IPL 2020, David Warner looked focussed with clarity in stroke playing and footwork, which are signs of his good form.
The third over of the game when Shreyas Iyer introduced Ravichandran Ashwin to check Wridhiman Saha who was going all guns blazing at that stage, Warner pounced on Ashwin and made his intentions clear on the Delhi’s bowling. A six off bowler who has always given him trouble got Warner going as Australian never looked back and kept on coming at the bowlers.
An onslaught followed in the next over of Nortje and when Kagiso Rbaa returned with his second over of the night in the sixth over, Warner announced his arrival on the stage and alerted Iyer and the Delhi team that he had a well-planned strategy to take on the best of Delhi’s firepower in the bowling department.
Bowlers of Rashid Khan’s stature barely have an off day with the ball and with the mountain of runs behind him while defending, it was always an uphill task for the Delhi batting side to tackle Rashid Khan. However, teams in the past have decided to let their guards down against Rashid to preserve wickets in order to attack other bowlers in the team.
Hence, the spell of Rashid Khan was critical for the Sunrisers in the game as Warner could not have asked for a situation of a close game after posting such a huge total on the board. The Delhi Capitals never got going and by the time Rashid was introduced they were made claustrophobic and had to go against Rashid as well in order to make a game out of a long chase. Rashid left his mark immediately beating Shimron Hetmyer on the backfoot on his very first delivery and followed it with a superb wrong’un to outsmart Ajinkya Rahane in the same over.
He ended the night with a surreal figure of 7/3 which is the best figure for any bowler in the current season of the IPL from his four overs with 15 dot balls and the restrictions he put on the Delhi’s batting lineup killed the already failing chasing efforts of Delhi Capitals.
When Shreyas Iyer had won the toss and elected to bowl first, he would have hoped the duo of Kagiso Rabada and Anrich Nortje would turn up with the best against the Sunrisers. But, it wasn’t to be as Kagsio Rbada had his worst night on the field with the ball and the team could never recover from the jolt he received from the opening pair of the Sunrisers Hyderabad.
Rabada came into the game with an outstanding record of taking at least one wicket in his last 19 appearances in the IPL but he could not find his lengths as he was finding in the games preceding the tonight’s game.
He started poorly and leaked 15 runs in his first over, giving two boundaries to Wriddhiman Saha and the night went from good to worse for him as David Warner made his night bad to worse sending him all parts of the ground in his second over of the game. He salvaged some pride in the last over by limiting the damage to only seven runs but the damage to the team was already incurred and the Delhi Capitals could never match up the level of batting that the Sunrisers put on.
The Delhi Capitals’ top order has been in good form and it meant that players such as Shimron Hetmyer who was assigned the task of finishing games were not getting enough time in the middle to change the course of the game. However, with steeping required run rate and early loss of wickets, the Delhi management decided to try Hetmyer’s match-winning abilities.
Hetmyer never got going and was stuck in the middle in search of desperate boundaries which he scored here and there and one ball of Rashid Khan was enough for the Sunrisers to see his back. Hetmyer had faced only 85 balls in the 11 matches he had played before this match and he could not make the most of the opportunity he was given in the chase against the Sunrisers.
After showing belligerence in the early part of the tournament when the side could pose headaches for any team and showed exemplary balance in the playing XI, the Delhi Capitals have gone off the boil in the last three games and have faced defeats. These defeats do not change their fortunes and standings on the points table but both Shreyas Iyer and Ricky Ponting would do well to remind the side that IPL is a very tough tournament to stop a slide and they need to come back stronger than ever against tougher opponents in the remaining two matches.
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