The Jason Holder show was on full display today as the Sunrisers Hyderabad defeated Royal Challengers Bangalore by six wickets at Abu Dhabi to enter the Qualifiers of the Indian Premier League 2020. In the Qualifiers scheduled to be held on November 8, the Orange brigade will face Delhi Capitals for a seat in the finals.
For the Sunrisers, captain of the West Indies Test team - Jason Holder, played a decisive role along with Kiwi captain Kane Williamson. For the RCB, there wasn’t much positive apart from the two leggies in Adam Zampa and Yuzvendra Chahal and batting wise the veteran AB de Villiers who tried hard to dig the team out of a hole.
On that note, let s look at the Hits and Flops from the game as Royal Challengers Bangalore crashed out of the ongoing edition of the IPL after losing five games in a row.
Originally the West Indian was not even a part of the Sunrisers set up as he was unsold in the IPL auctions ahead of the tournament. But brought in as an injury replacement to Mitchell Marsh, Holder has probably been the best thing to happen to the Orange brigade. Continuously he has performed both with the bat and the ball and in this match too he showed what an asset he could be.
The Test captain of the Caribbean team, Holder has established himself as one of the top all-rounders in world cricket. He has now won two games for his team by batting till the end. The 29-year-old scored 24 off 20 deliveries and most importantly formed the much-required partnership with Kane Williamson when SRH looked in trouble in the middle overs.
In batting, he might have got just three chances to showcase his skills and has got success on two occasions, but in bowling, the Barbadian has been phenomenal. In just six innings, he has taken 13 wickets including two three-wicket hauls. In this game too, he ended up with the figures of 3/25 and accounted for the crucial wickets of RCB skipper Virat Kohli and in form Devdutt Padikkal.
The Kiwi has been referred to as a bank by his skipper David Warner. Proving him right, Williamson pulled out one of the best innings for the pressure situation as he scored fifty and remained not out to see his team home.
Although not able to perform in a great manner in every game, the importance of his presence was understood today. Before this game, he had only one fifty to his name this season. But as they say, you can’t buy experience, therefore the experience of the 30-year-old came in handy as in a tough situation, instead of getting bogged down, he was calmness personified.
At 67/4, the Sunrisers were looking in all sorts of trouble chasing a small total of 132. But the Tauranga born Williamson remained unfazed and focused on his innings to get the team home. He built a partnership of 56 runs with Jason Holder. In his innings of 50* Williamson hit two fours and two sixes.
Natarajan has probably been the best-uncapped bowler in this tournament so far. Unleashing yorkers at will, the Tamil Nadu born has impressed one and all with his bowling skills. In this game too, the ball he bowled to take de Villiers’ wicket is being termed by most as the ball of the tournament. Natarajan took 2 wickets in this match and finished with the figures of 2/33. But those two wickets were game-changing in the scenarios that they were taken in.
This season has not gone the way Kohli or his fans would have wanted for him. Coming on the back of a failed New Zealand tour and a six-month lockdown, people had expected that Virat would be at his explosive best, looking to take this IPL as a challenge and win it for his team and himself. But that did not happen as he couldn’t come to his form in the entire tournament.
In this game too, his decision to open the innings in place of Aaron Finch backfired as he himself got out for just six runs and on a delivery that did not deserve a wicket what so ever.
For a crucial game, proven talent is always selected over someone new and Finch too was selected in place of his fellow Australian Joshua Philippe for this game. But the Victorian couldn’t repay the faith shown in him. He was even shielded for the new ball (although unsuccessfully) by skipper Virat.
Finch could only score 32 in this game and in the entire tournament; he has scored just 219 runs at an average of 21.9. He failed big time and was one of the prime reasons why the RCB couldn’t progress further in the series.
Padikkal has been one of the finest young batsmen in this year’s IPL. He has scored 473 runs in 15 innings this season. The talent that he has needs temperament that he lacks. He threw away his wicket in this game when it was required the most for him to stay there and get his team a good score to defend. Still, he is young and therefore would improve by leaps and bounds. But for this game, he for sure was not a hit.
While this would be it for the RCB in this year's IPLand they would go out with some positives for sure, but for SRH there is a whole lot of things coming their way. The next match hat 8 November promises to be a crackerjack.
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