With the brilliant bowling of debutant Prafulla Hinge (four wickets for 34 runs) and Shakib Hussain (four wickets for 24 runs) after captain Ishan Kishan’s innings of 91 runs in 44 balls, Sunrisers Hyderabad defeated Rajasthan Royals by 57 runs in the Indian Premier League (IPL) T20 match here on Monday.
Hinge set a new IPL record by taking three wickets in the first over itself. He made his debut memorable by dismissing Vaibhav Suryavanshi, Dhruv Jurel and Luhan-Dre Pretorius without opening the account.
After Kishan’s explosive innings, Sunrisers scored 216 runs for six wickets in the last overs due to the explosive batting of Nitish Kumar Reddy and Salil Arora, in response to which Rajasthan Royals were bowled out for 159 runs in 19 overs.
This is the first defeat of the Royals in five matches, while this is the second win of the Sunrisers in the same number of matches. Hinge got good support from another debutant bowler Shakib, who took important wickets of Yashasvi Jaiswal (1) and Donovan Ferreira (69 runs in 44 balls). Ishan Malinga took two wickets for 31 runs.
After the fall of five wickets for just nine runs, Ferreira and Ravindra Jadeja (45 runs in 32 balls) kept the Royals in the match by making a partnership of 118 runs in 72 balls for the sixth wicket, but with the breakdown of this partnership, the team’s hopes ended.
Apart from hitting eight fours and six sixes in his innings, Kishan made an important partnership of 88 runs for the third wicket with Heinrich Klaasen (40 runs in 26 balls).
In the last overs, Reddy increased the run rate by scoring 28 runs in just 13 balls, while Arora scored an unbeaten 24 runs in 13 balls to take the team to a strong score.
While defending the target, Hinge got Vaibhav Suryavanshi caught by wicketkeeper Arora on the second ball of the innings. After this he bowled Jurel and completed three wickets by getting Luhan-Dre Pretorius caught by Reddy. These three batsmen returned to the pavilion without opening their account, due to which the Royals lost three wickets for one run.
Shakib dismissed Jaiswal in the second over and reduced the score to four wickets for two runs. Captain Riyan Parag hit the first four of the innings against Hinge, but was caught by Abhishek Sharma in the slip on the last ball of the third over, due to which half of the Royals team returned to the pavilion at nine runs in three overs.
After this, experienced Ravindra Jadeja and Donovan Ferreira batted cautiously and scored boundaries at regular intervals. Ferreira remained more aggressive during this period.
Jadeja hit two fours against Shakib in the fourth over, while Ferreira hit the first six of the innings against Hinge. The team’s score in the powerplay was 40 runs for five wickets.
Continuing his aggressive attitude, Ferreira hit two fours on consecutive balls against Shivang Kumar in the seventh over and hit the second six of his innings in the 11th over.
In the next over, he completed his half-century in 31 balls by hitting two fours and a six on consecutive balls of Harsh Dubey. Jadeja took the team’s score beyond 100 by hitting a four in the 13th over, while in the same over with one run by Ferreira, the pair completed a century partnership in 65 balls.
Shakib broke this wonderful partnership by bowling Ferreira in the 15th over, while Malinga ended the Royals’ hopes of victory by getting Jadeja caught by Arora.
After this, Shakib made his debut memorable by dismissing Joffra Archer and Ravi Bishnoi on consecutive balls in the 17th over. Tushar Deshpande scored 25 runs in 11 balls with the help of three sixes, but by then it was too late.
Before this, Sunrisers also had a bad start. Abhishek returned to the pavilion at the beginning of the innings without opening his account. He tried to play a big shot on the very first ball, but was caught by Bishnoi at third man on the ball of Archer (2 wickets for 37 runs).
After this, Kishan adopted an aggressive style and hit Archer for a four over fine leg and a six over deep midwicket. In the next overs, he also kept the run pace fast by hitting big shots on Sandeep Sharma and Deshpande. From the other end, Travis Head could not impress and was out after scoring 18 runs in 18 balls.
Even after this wicket, Kishan continued his aggressive stance and completed his half-century in 30 balls and took the team beyond 100 in 10.3 overs.
Kishan, while trying to play a big shot, waved Sandeep’s ball in the air and despite the collision with wicketkeeper Dhruv Jurel, the bowler took a brilliant catch.
Reddy hit four sixes in the last overs, while Arora hit two sixes and two fours, including a six against Tushar Deshpande on the last ball of the innings.