The five wickets between Abhishek Sharma (2 for 24) and Shahbaz Ahmed (3 for 23) made sure the second qualifier spun out of Rajasthan Royals’ (RR) control and paved a path for Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) into the Indian Premier League final with a 36-run victory at the M.A. Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai on Friday.
Dew did little to trouble the spin duo who wrested the control from Royals, who were once cruising at 65 for one in the 176-run chase.
Yashasvi Jaiswal set the tone with a hook off Bhuvneshwar Kumar in the first over, but Tom Kohler-Cadmore’s failure to break the shackles meant Royals trailed the asking rate early on.
It needed a 19-run onslaught from Jaiswal off Bhuvneshwar in the final over of the PowerPlay to brush aside the tepid start and get the Royals back on track. But overcome by cramps, the southpaw squandered yet another start, miscuing an on-side heave off Shahbaz on 42.
AS IT HAPPENED - SRH vs RR QUALIFIER 2
SRH had the contest by the scruff of the neck when Sanju Samson and Riyan Parag perished taking on the spin duo and holed out to the boundary riders. RR’s ploy to promote R. Ashwin bore no result when Shahbaz had him caught behind for a duck.
The left-handed Shimron Hetmyer was a favourable matchup against the left-arm off-spin duo, but even he was no match to Abhishek’s arm-ball which skidded on and clipped his off stump.
Even with RR staring down the barrel, Dhruv Jurel (56 n.o., 32b, 7x4, 2x6) refused to wave the white flag, breaching the fence twice off Abhishek and Shahbaz. But with the fall of Rovman Powell, the last recognised batter, Jurel’s 26-ball fifty was too little too late to pull Royals back from the brink.
The fightback from the spinners was possible courtesy of Heinrich Klaasen’s (50, 34b, 4x6) innings-salvaging half-century.
A 14-ball cameo from Rahul Tripathi served as the perfect endorsement for Sunrisers’ ‘throw caution to the wind’ PowerPlay approach even after Trent Boult cut short Abhishek’s assault in the first over.
A leading edge which flew between backward point and short third man off R. Ashwin in the second over could not deter Tripathi from picking apart the most miserly bowling unit in IPL in the first six overs. He relished in sweeping in particular, picking a maximum each of Ashwin and Boult with the shot.
Boult, though, had the last laugh in the fifth over, when his slower bouncer foxed Tripathi into ramping to short third man. Aiden Markram edging to the same fielder three deliveries later meant Klaasen, much like his outing against Kolkata Knight Riders, was called in for crisis control.
Travis Head, who played the perfect foil until the sixth over, struck his first boundary off Sandeep Sharma to take SRH to 68 for three at the end of the PowerPlay. Head pocketed another 10 off Avesh Khan before Klaasen deposited Yuzvendra Chahal into the crowd over mid wicket.
The recovery proved short-lived as, for the second time in the innings, a slower bouncer became the undoing of a Sunrisers batter. Head holed out to short third man off Sandeep, leaving SRH four down at 99. With his team in the doldrums, Klaasen went inside out off Chahal to break a 29-ball phase without a boundary.
Sunrisers Hyderabad’s Klaasen plays a short against RR. | Photo Credit: VEDHAN M/The Hindu
But Avesh returned to remove Nitish Kumar Reddy and Abdul Samad off successive deliveries and lay bare Sunrisers’ middle-order woes one more time.
Shahbaz’s run-a-ball 18 in the 42-run alliance with Klaasen was the second wind for Sunrisers and prolonged their fight till the final over. Though Klaasen was cleaned up by Sandeep’s yorker two balls after getting to a fifty, SRH had already posted a total that would prove too much for RR.
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