The Sunrisers Hyderabad effected a clinical 69-run win over a disarrayed Kings XI Punjab in the 22nd match of the Indian Premier League on Thursday, 8 October at the Dubai International Stadium.
Things went Sunrisers way from the start after captain David Warner won the toss and chose to bat first. With the venue overwhelming favouring the teams that bat first, nobody could complain about the decision. The prolific David Warner-Jonny Bairstow from the last season finally clicked together at the halfway mark of the tournament putting up 160-run together in just 15 overs.
Runaway winners at that point of the match, SRH managed to give it up losing six wickets in the next five overs and were restricted to 201 in their registered 20 overs, at least 20-30 runs short of what they would have actually liked to defend with the makeshift bowling.
Coming into the chase, none barring Nicholas Pooran fired in all cylinders and Punjab managed to mess up a difficult but achievable run chase in comical fashion. The West Indian waged a one-man war in a shot-laden innings of 77 where he hit 7 huge sixes and at the end of the day, it was just not enough with his teammates falling apart like a pack of cards.
On that note here are the three reasons why Sunrisers Hyderabad won a crucial game in their campaign against KL Rahul’s Kings XI Punjab.
Making a name for themselves in the last season as the most dangerous opening pair in the Indian Premier League, the unlikely combination of an Australia and an Englishmen scored a total of 1137 runs between them.
Things were not coming off since the start of this season with David Warner unable to find his timing. With a partnership long overdue, both the batsmen broke their shackles to put together a stellar 160-run stand to entertain the crowd, err…the viewers at home.
While Warner scored 52 off 40 balls and played the anchor role, Bairstow hit 6 sixes and 7 boundaries en route his 97-run innings.
Warner later in the second innings, started the KXIP debacle affecting an excellent runout of in form Mayank Agarwal which halted Punjab's momentum from the get-go and put SRH in control of the game.
Rashid Khan is back to doing what he does best, picking wickets. With ace pacer Bhuvneshwar Kumar out of the equation for the tournament, Rashid Khan has taken it upon himself to be the leader of the pack.
This is the second time that Rashid picked up three wickets in a match this season and last night he was the sole reason KXIP had to give the fight.
At the time when Pooran was playing one of the best innings of his life, Rashid Khan nonchalantly walked down his runup and bowled a well-measured googly at a good pace. Pooran punched the ball uppishly and put the ball in the safe hands of Khaleel Ahmed.
Game! Set! Match!
With Pooran gone and Rashid still left with one ball in his full quota of four overs, he caught a clueless Mohammed Shami plumb in front to pick up the eighth wicket of the KXIP innings.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not singling out any Punjab bowler because when you let Warner and Bairstow settle you can only sit back and watch.
Mujeeb Ur Rahman finally got a chance to play in the first XI after much criticism of the Punjab thinktank about their bowling combination. He gave away 39 runs in his four overs failing to register any impact on the SRH batting line-up, but it was his batting that puts his name on this list.
In the 14th over of the game, Mujeeb edged a ball back to the keeper. A loud appeal from bowler Khaleel Ahmed and keeper Bairstow was turned down by the on-field umpire but the umpires sent the decision upstairs to check for bump ball.
Once the soft signal (not out) was overturned and as Mujeeb started walking back towards his dugout, he turned back and signalled for review himself.
Now, according to the laws that govern the IPL, a batsman can neither consult the dugout nor can the dugout send out instructions to the batsmen to review an umpire’s decision.
With umpires sending the decision back upstairs to check for an ultra-edge, Mujeeb had to take the long walk back again.
The good thing is that Mujeeb’s review became inconsequential with Pooran giving a dolly into the hands of Khaleel. But with six overs still to go, what would have happened if there was a tight call involving Pooran? This could have turned out to be a huge talking point in the game and Twitter would have been up in arms against the young Afghan.
KXIP losing one more match in the Indian Premier League 2020 means that they are the only team in the league, reeling at 2 points from six games. They have lost 4 consecutive games and for a side that looked so solid initially, their fallacies have been exposed by the other teams time and again. Punjab play their next match against Kolkata Knight Riders who would be on a high after restricting Chennai Super Kings in a mind-boggling game. Punjab will need to find the correct combination and just get on with it if they want to remain in the competition.
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