May 13, 2017
Brief Scorecard: Sunrisers Hyderabad 158 for 2 (Warner 69*, Shankar 63*, Praveen 2-22) beat Gujarat Lions 154 (Kishan 61, Smith 54, Siraj 4-32, Rashid 3-34) by 8 wickets
May 13, 2017
Brief Scorecard: Sunrisers Hyderabad 158 for 2 (Warner 69*, Shankar 63*, Praveen 2-22) beat Gujarat Lions 154 (Kishan 61, Smith 54, Siraj 4-32, Rashid 3-34) by 8 wickets
David Warner and Vijay Shankar took Sunrisers home, Gujarat Lions v Sunrisers Hyderabad, IPL 2017, Kanpur, May 13, 2017 – BCCI
KANPUR – It's not everyday that you find a team losing ten wickets for 43 runs after an opening stand of 111. But that's what happened with Gujarat Lions after they were put in to bat in their last game of the Indian Premier League 2017 at Green Park in Kanpur on Saturday (May 13). Gujarat were bowled out for 154 in 19.2 overs when a 200-plus score looked achievable at the halfway stage of their innings.
Mohammed Siraj (4 for 32) and Rashid Khan (3 for 34) came back strongly after going for 9 and 17 in their respective first overs, and Bhuvneshwar Kumar picked up the last two wickets off successive balls, leaving Ravindra Jadeja, who remained unbeaten on 20, frustrated.
After that, David Warner made a responsible 69 not out and put on an unbroken third-wicket stand of 133 with Vijay Shankar (63 not out) to take Hyderabad to an eight-wicket win in 18.1 overs, thus securing a place in the playoffs.
Dwayne Smith (54) and Ishan Kishan (61) started Gujarat's innings with attacking intent. Sensing that the batsmen were enjoying the pace off what looked like a roughed up surface, Warner introduced Mohammed Nabi's offspin in the fourth over and asked his pacers to rely on cutters and slower balls.
The openers adjusted themselves well to Hyderabad's changed plans to hit 11 fours and six sixes between them in 10.4 overs before Smith was late on a pull off a slider from Rashid and was trapped in front.
Siraj produced the game's turning point in the 13th over when Kishan hoicked an off-cutter from outside offstump, and Naman Ojha had little problem completing the catch to his right. A ball later, Suresh Raina mistimed a similar ball bowled on legstump and Shikhar Dhawan took an easy catch on the midwicket boundary.
Rashid struck with the first ball of the next over when Dinesh Karthik hit a full toss to midwicket where Deepak Hooda took a diving catch. And, then Aaron Finch failed to read Rashid's googly for the second time this season and was bowled as Gujarat had lost four wickets in eight balls.
With the ball reversing and no sixes coming after the fall of the first wicket, Faulkner tried to force the pace of the game only to be bowled by Siraj. Pradeep Sangwan left a huge gap between bat and pad as Siraj finished his spell by recording his career's second four-wicket haul. Siddarth Kaul and Bhuvneshwar shared the remaining three wickets to end the innings.
As many as six batsmen were bowled, and eight of them were dismissed for single-digit scores. Hyderabad deserved credit for not losing their head in a must-win game when Smith and Kishan were striking the ball clean. Instead, they worked towards getting that one breakthrough that put them on top.
In the chase, Praveen Kumar, playing in place of Basil Thampi, reduced Hyderabad to 25 for 2. Without an injured Yuvraj Singh, the defending champions may have been a spot of bother but all speculations were put to rest by the composure of Warner and Vijay. With the target always in sight, they took their time to build the innings, and also benefitted from some loose deliveries, sloppy fielding and a gift from Anil Chaudhary, the umpire.
Warner was on 30 when he edged Ankit Soni to be caught behind, but Chaudhary, one of the poorest performing umpires in the circuit for the last few seasons, remained unmoved even as Karthik made his displeasure known by throwing the ball into the ground.
Hyderabad needed 82 off 63 balls at that stage – not difficult by T20 standards but just enough that could have put an inexperienced lower middle-order to test. Warner and Vijay hit Soni for five fours in his next nine balls to sum up the game.
Vijay brought up his first IPL fifty and Warner became the first batsman to score 600 runs this season, as the defending champions ended the league stage with 17 points. Gujarat, who will not exist as a team in 2018 as their contract was only for two seasons, on the other hand would wonder what could have happened had they seized key moments at different stages of the tournament, like not losing all their wickets for 43 runs after a century stand.
Courtesy: Wisden India
