SRH thrashes RR by seven wickets

KATHMANDU, September 28: Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) returned to winning ways after beating Rajasthan Royals (RR) by seven wickets in Match 40 of the VIVO Indian Premier League (IPL) 2021 in Dubai on Monday.

Jason Roy, making his SRH debut, and Kane Williamson starred with the bat as SRH chased down the target of 165 runs in 18.3 overs with a cracking start, courtesy Wriddhiman Saha and Jason Roy.

After scoring 14 runs in the first two overs, the pair cut loose. First, Saha tonked a six and a four in the third over off Jaydev Unadkat, before Mustafizur Rahman’s next over cost RR 13 runs.

Roy then tonked four fours off Chris Morris in the fifth over as he and Saha completed a quickfire fifty-run stand.

RR managed to break the ominous-looking opening stand after Saha was stumped off Mahipal Lomror in the final over of the powerplay.

Kane Williamson joined Roy in the middle and the duo kept the scorecard ticking and took SRH to 90/1 after 10 overs. In the 11th over, Roy went after Rahul Tewatia and creamed a six and three fours to complete his fifty on SRH debut and pushed his side to 111/1.

Chetan Sakariya cut short Roy’s onslaught as he dismissed the right-hander for 60. Priyam Garg got out soon after as Mustafizur took a fine catch on his own bowling.

Williamson, though, continued to lead from the front and anchored the SRH chase, with Abhishek Sharma for company. The SRH skipper scored an unbeaten 51 as he and Sharma, who scored 21*, took SRH home.

Earlier, RR, who elected to bat, made three changes to their team as Jaydev Unadkat, Evin Lewis and Chris Morris replaced injured Kartik Tyagi, David Miller and Tabraiz Shamsi. SRH, on the other hand, made four changes as Roy, who made his SRH debut, Garg, Sharma and Siddarth Kaul came into the team in place of David Warner, Manish Pandey, Kedar Jadhav and an injured Khaleel Ahmed.

RR lost their first wicket early as Bhuvneshwar Kumar struck with his first ball of the match to dismiss Evin Lewis. But captain Sanju Samson and Yashasvi Jaiswal strung a fine partnership as RR moved past fifty soon after the powerplay.

The duo completed a fifty-run stand in the ninth over. But SRH managed to break the Jaiswal-Samson stand as Sandeep Sharma dismissed the left-hander for 36. RR lost another wicket in quick succession as Rashid Khan got Liam Livingstone out in the 11th over.

Samson and Mahipal Lomror then joined forces and went on to build a fine 84-run stand.

The pair took RR past hundred in the 14th over before Samson cranked a six in the 15th over to move closer to a half-century. The RR skipper then went after Kaul, hammering a four and two sixes in the next over to sail past fifty, cross the 400-run mark in this edition of the tournament and complete 3000 runs in IPL.

With two overs to go, RR had cruised past 150. However, SRH pulled things back in the last two overs. While Bhuvneshwar Kumar, who bowled the penultimate over, conceded just seven runs, Kaul bowled a double-wicket final over – which saw him dismiss Samson for a fine 82 and Riyan Parag – conceding just four runs as SRH limited RR to 164/6.