Match report
Sunrisers backed up their great performance on the opening night of IPL 2017 with an even better all-round display against Gujarat Lions, and have now begun their title defence with comprehensive back-to-back wins.
Having put the beleaguered visitors into bat after winning the toss, David Warner marshalled his bowling resources well and the SRH skipper received another great bowling performance from Afghanistan’s Rashid Khan, whose clever variations were picked up by none of the Lions’ batsmen. The evidence of this was Rashid trapping Brendon McCullum, Aaron Finch and Suresh Raina in front of the stumps, while the batsmen who generally play spin well, like Dinesh Karthik, often missed the line of the ball.
On what was quite a dry pitch, the spinners got the ball to grip the surface and stroke-making wasn’t entirely easy. But having been put into bat, Gujarat probably needed a total in the region of 160 to give themselves a good chance of restricting Sunrisers, especially considering that they do not have a potent bowling attack.
However, with very little contribution from the Gujarat top order, the 30s of Jason Roy (31), Karthik (30) and Dwayne Smith (37) proved too little for the visitors’ liking. The fifth-wicket partnership between Karthik and Smith seemed like it could take Sunrisers to or close to 160, but both these batsmen fell in the space of five balls (16.4 and 17.2) and the tailenders were unable to play the big shots at the slog. At no stage were Sunrisers’s bowlers and their captain put under pressure by the Lions.
Replying to Gujarat’s 135, Sunrisers had their captain and established No. 3 lead them to a nine-wicket win, to heap more misery on an already beleaguered GL. Warner finished off the 136-run chase with a six and was on unbeaten on 76 while his Australian and New South Wales team-mate Henriques followed up his 52 against RCB with an unbeaten 52* here.
Another point worth mentioning here is that Gujarat had lost their campaign opener against KKR by 10 wickets and the margin of defeat here (nine wickets) tells you that their bowlers are struggling to take wickets. And, as a result, no matter what total the batsmen put up on the board, it is likely to be insufficient with the kind of bowling attack the Lions possess and have fielded in their first couple of matches.
Match facts
IPL 2017, 6th match: Sunrisers (SRH) v Gujarat Lions (GL)
Date and time: April 9, 4:00 PM IST
Venue: Rajiv Gandhi International Cricket Stadium, Hyderabad
Sunrisers vs Lions, 6th Match Scorecard
David Warner won the toss and chose to field first.
SRH: 1. David Warner (C), 2. Shikhar Dhawan, 3. Moises Henriques, 4. Yuvraj Singh, 5. Deepak Hooda, 6. Naman Ojha, 7. Ben Cutting, 8. Bhuvneshwar Kumar, 9. Rashid Khan, 10. Ashish Nehra, and 11. Bipul Sharma
GL: 1. Suresh Raina*, 2. Brendon McCullum, 3. Dwayne Smith, 4. Aaron Finch, 5. Dinesh Karthik, 6. Shivil Kaushik, 7. Jason Roy, 8. Praveen Kumar, 9. Dhawal Kulkarni, 10. Basil Thampi, and 11. Tejas Baroka
Result: Sunrisers beat Gujarat Lions by nine wickets, to begin their IPL 2017 campaign with back-to-back wins. Rashid Khan was awarded the man-of-the-match for his spell of 3/19.
| Gujarat Lions’s (GL) Innings | ||||||
| Batsmen and dismissal | Runs scored | No. of 4s | No. of 6s | Strike rate | ||
| Jason Roy
caught S Dhawan, bowled Bhuvneshwar |
31 (21) | 5 | 0 | 147.61 | ||
| Brendon McCullum
leg before wicket Rashid |
5 (10) | 0 | 0 | 50.00 | ||
| Suresh Raina
leg before wicket Rashid |
5 (8) | 0 | 0 | 62.50 | ||
| Aaron Finch
leg before wicket Rashid |
3 (5) | 0 | 0 | 60.00 | ||
| Dinesh Karthik
caught Ojha, bowled Nehra |
30 (32) | 2 | 0 | 93.75 | ||
| Dwayne Smith
caught Shankar (sub), bowled Bhuvneshwar |
37 (27) | 4 | 1 | 137.03 | ||
| Dhawal Kulkarni
run out Rashid |
1 (2) | 0 | 0 | 50.00 | ||
| Praveen Kumar
not out |
7 (7) | 0 | 0 | 100.00 | ||
| Basil Thampi
not out |
13 (8) | 0 | 1 | 162.50 | ||
| Extras | 3 (2 leg byes and 1 leg bye) | |||||
| Batsmen who didn’t bat | Tejas Baroka and Shivil Kaushik | |||||
| GL’s total | 135/7 in 20 overs, at 6.75 runs per over | |||||
| GL’s fall of wickets | 35/1 (McCullum, 4.5), 37/2 (Roy, 5.2), 42/3 (Finch, 6.2), 57/4 (Raina, 8.6), 113/5 (Smith, 16.4), 114/6 (Karthik, 17.2), and 115/7 (Kulkarni, 17.4) | |||||
| Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) Bowling | ||||||
| Bowlers | Overs | Dots bowled | Runs conceded | Wickets taken | Economy rate | |
| Bipul Sharma | 4 | 7 | 24 | 0 | 6.00 | |
| Bhuvneshwar Kumar | 4 | 10 | 21 | 2 | 5.25 | |
| Ashish Nehra | 4 | 9 | 27 | 1 | 6.75 | |
| Rashid Khan | 4 | 11 | 19 | 3 | 3.75 | |
| Ben Cutting | 3 | 2 | 29 | 0 | 9.67 | |
| Moises Henriques | 1 | 0 | 12 | 0 | 12.00 | |
| SRH Innings (target: 136 in 20 overs, at 6.80 runs per over) | ||||||
| Batsmen and dismissal | Runs scored | No. of 4s | No. of 6s | Strike rate | ||
| David Warner
not out |
76 (45) | 6 | 4 | 168.88 | ||
| Shikhar Dhawan
caught McCullum, bowled Praveen |
9 (9) | 0 | 1 | 100.00 | ||
| Moises Henriques
not out |
52 (39) | 6 | 0 | 133.33 | ||
| Extras | 3 (3 wides) | |||||
| Batsmen who didn’t bat | Yuvraj Singh, Naman Ojha, Deepak Hooda, Ben Cutting, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Bipul Sharma, Ashish Nehra, and Rashid Khan | |||||
| SRH’s total | 140/1 in 15.3 overs, at 9.03 runs per over | |||||
| SRH’s fall of wickets | 32/1 (S Dhawan, 3.1) | |||||
| GL Bowling | ||||||
| Bowlers | Overs | Dots bowled | Runs conceded | Wickets taken | Economy rate | |
| Suresh Raina | 2 | 4 | 24 | 0 | 12.00 | |
| Praveen Kumar | 2 | 5 | 16 | 1 | 8.00 | |
| Tejas Baroka | 3.3 | 6 | 33 | 0 | 9.42 | |
| Dhawal Kulkarni | 2 | 2 | 17 | 0 | 8.50 | |
| Shivil Kaushik | 4 | 7 | 29 | 0 | 7.25 | |
| Basil Thampi | 2 | 3 | 21 | 0 | 10.50 | |