Mumbai: Defending a total of 168, pressure was on the Gujarat Titans’ new ball bowlers in their top-of-the-table IPL clash against Sunrisers Hyderabad at the Narendra Modi Stadium, Ahmedabad, on Tuesday evening.
Kagiso Rabada rose to the occasion, prying open the top order with a three-wicket burst as SRH were bowled out for just 86 runs in 14.5 overs. On a pitch where the pacers held sway, he was well supported by Mohammed Siraj (1/11), Jason Holder (3/20) and Prasidh Krishna (2/23)
GT have now won all four matches against SRH at the Narendra Modi Stadium. In the overall rivalry, they lead 6-1. The 82-run victory helped GT go on top of the points table with a tally of 16.
While batting, the home side was well served by opener Sai Sudarshan (61 off 44 balls) and Washington Sundar (50 off 33). The two absorbed tremendous pressure to lift their team from their lowest Powerplay score (34/2 in six overs) this season. Joining forces in the 10th over, with the score at 64/3, the two added 60 runs off 41 balls to bolster the total on a tough pitch.
Opening burst
SRH have built their success on aggressive starts from their explosive opening pair of Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma and their bowlers did their job well to restrict the hosts to a modest score.
The left-handed pair could take the game away within a few overs. With their team’s hopes dependent on them, Rabada and Siraj rose to the challenge and delivered a superb opening performance, knocking the stuffing out of the SRH batting.
Siraj lifted his team by inducing a leading edge from Head in a wicket-maiden opening over. Abhishek took on Rabada by hitting a six first-ball but when he tried to make room to attack, the GT spearhead outsmarted him. Rabada cramped the opener by following him and the opener watched helplessly as the ball rolled on to the stumps off his body. Two wickets for six runs in 1.4 overs, was exactly the start GT wanted after getting only 168.
At number 3, Ishan Kishan came and also smashed Rabada for a six. Like he has done to a lot of batters this season, the pacer did Kishan in with sheer pace with a back of a length in the channel. Cramped for room on the cut, the diminutive batter could only manage to feather the ball through to the keeper. Capping a brilliant performance, Rabada then picked up the wicket of R Smaran, caught at mid-off, on the penultimate ball of the powerplay.
Bowling unchanged through the Powerplay, the pair of Rabada and Siraj ripped the heart out of the SRH batting line-up, reducing them to 32/4 in 5.5 overs. It was the first time in IPL history that two bowlers bowled through the Powerplay in five consecutive games.
Going for the kill, Rabada bowled four overs in a row to finish with figures of 4-0-28-3, while Siraj built the pressure from the other end with a spell of 3-1-11-1.
SRH’s dim hopes now rested on their highest run-getter of the season, Heinrich Klaasen. But it was a night when everything went the way of the GT bowlers. On the first ball of the 11th over, Jason Holder had Klaasen caught off a top edge, trying to tuck the ball to the leg-side. The only consultation for Klaasen was that on way to scoring 14 runs, he leapfrogged GT’s Sai Sudarshan run tally to take the orange cap.
Earlier, SRH captain Pat Cummins ignored the record favouring the batting team and opted to bowl first. The vastly experienced Australian Test captain had read the pitch perfectly, picking an extra pacer, Praful Hinge. The rookie pacer repaid the faith with two early breakthroughs. Hinge struck on his second ball, getting Shubman Gill to play a false shot. Next over, he got Jos Buttler on his first ball, edging to the keeper on the leg side.
Cummins himself led from the front with figures of 4-0-20-1. The fine bowling performance, however, was in vain as SRH’s batters came a cropper against Rabada & Co.