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Sharma and Markram see Sunrisers home

cricket05 April 2024 17:58| © MWP
By:Patrick Compton
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Abhishek Sharma slammed a thunderous 37 off 12 balls to help the Sunrisers Hyderabad beat the Chennai Super Kings by six wickets with 11 balls to spare in their Tata IPL match at an electric Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium in Hyderabad on Friday.

Set to make 166 for victory on a slowish pitch, Sharma gave his team the perfect start by belting three fours and four sixes in his innings.

Sharma fell with the total on 46 in 2.4 overs, caught on the point boundary off Deepak Chahar, but not before he had taken 27 off the second over delivered by Mukesh Choudhary.

It was a match watched by nearly 40 000 noisy spectators equally divided between the two teams, creating a fine atmosphere.

After Sharma's dismissal, South Africa’s Aiden Markram came in to play the perfect innings, building on the foundations set by Sharma.

The 50 came up in 3.3 overs and the home team raced to 78 for one in the power play before opener Travis Head - who was dropped by Moeen Ali at slip in the first over – was caught on the square leg boundary sweeping spinner Maheesh Theekshana to deep square leg.

Markram’s first 50 of the competition came up in 36 balls as he guided his team towards victory, but there was a brief blip in the innings when he and Shahbaz Ahamed both fell to Moeen Ali attempting to reverse sweep the off-spinner.

But Heinrich Klaasen and Nitish Kumar Reddy showed cool heads in the mini-crisis and it was Nitish who finished off the match with a straight drive for six.

Unlike the Sunrisers, who mainly relied on their pace bowlers, Chennai concentrated on their spinners with Ali (2-23) and Theekshana (1-27 off four overs) particularly impressive.

CANNY PACEMEN 

Earlier, the Sunrisers took pace off the ball to restrict Chennai to 165 for five in their innings after Sunrisers’ skipper Pat Cummins won the toss and put his opponents in to bat.

It was a decision that surprised some since the Sunrisers compiled an IPL record of 277 at the same ground a week ago.

But the pitch was not the same one and the Sunrisers’ pacemen bowled cannily, taking pace off the ball on a slower surface to frustrate the Chennai batsmen.

All three principal pacemen for Sunrisers, Pat Cummins (1-29 off four), Bhuvneshwar Kumar (1-28 off four) and Jaydev Unadkat (1-29 off four) went for less than 30 runs in their full quota of overs by bowling almost half their deliveries at slower than normal pace.

The only Chennai batter to flourish was left-hander Shivam Dube who exploited the few spin overs delivered to him, cracking 45 in just 24 balls.

For the rest of the batters, however, it was a bit of a struggle.

This was reflected in the dismissals of openers Rachin Ravindra who was caught at mid-on mistiming a slower ball from Kumar, Ruturaj Gaikwad who was out in a similar way and Ajinkya Rahane (35 off 30) who mistimed a drive to backward point.

Even Dube fell in this manner, tamely cutting a slower ball from Cummins to backward point.

Sunrisers Hyderabad: 1 Nitish Kumar Reddy, 2 Abhishek Sharma, 3 Aiden Markram, 4 Heinrich Klaasen (wk), 5 Abdul Samad, 6 Shahbaz Ahmed, 7 Pat Cummins (capt), 8 Bhuvneshwar Kumar, 9 Jaydev Unadkat, 10 Mayank Markande, 11 T Natarajan

Chennai Super Kings: 1 Ruturaj Gaikwad (capt), 2 Rachin Ravindra, 3 Ajinkya Rahane, 4 Moeen Ali, 5 Daryl Mitchell, 6 Shivam Dube, 7 Ravindra Jadeja, 8 MS Dhoni (wk), 9 Deepak Chahar, 10 Tushar Deshpande, 11 Maheesh Theekshana

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