Rain-god spoil Sunrisers party at Hyderabad : Weather played truant and put a stop to the winning streak of Sun Risers Hyderabad (SRH) when they lost the game to Rising Pune Supergiants (RPS) by a margin of 34 runs under the Duckworth-Lewis method, giving RPS their second win in 6 games.
Pick of the players has been Ashok Dinda, who made his debut for RPS, and literally ripped through the batting line up of SRH. He accounted for the SRH skipper, David Warner, the danger man in the fourth delivery of the very first over and gave a good start to his team.
Dinda bowled one short and wide outside the off-stump and Warner going for the cut, ended up hitting straight to Ajinkya Rahane at backward point, who made no mistake.
The other opener, Shikhar Dhawan produced his best IPL innings in this season, thus far. Playing a very patient innings and holding on to one end, he notched up an unbeaten 56* runs off 53 deliveries studded with 2 fours and a six.
His half-century came up in 48 deliveries with the help of 2 fours and a six.
Dhawan had three useful partnerships in the process. Alongwith Aditya Tare (8), he added 26 runs in 4.2 overs for the second wicket, a 47-run partnership in 8.3 overs for the 6th wicket alongwith the wicket-keeper, Naman Ojha (18), and finally for the 8th wicket, he added 23 runs in 1.3 overs alongwith Bhuvneshwar Kumar (21).
Meanwhile, Dinda restricted the SRH scoring by further accounting for Aditya Tare and Naman Ojha, taking his tally to 3 wickets off his quota of 4 overs, giving away 23 runs.
For the first time in this season Ravichandran Ashwin completed his full quota of 4 overs, giving away 14 runs and picked up the wicket of Deepak Hooda (1). His name sake and leggie counterpart, Murugan Ashwin, got to bowl only one over, gave away 6 runs and went wicketless.
By virtue of Dhawan’ patient innings, SRH succeeded in putting up 118 runs for the loss of 8 wickets in 20 overs.
In the innings break, Ravichandran Ashwin said, “We started well. Dinda gave us a perfect start. The ground is big, we were able to maintain the shine. So that”s why I was trying to bowl the arm-ball. We just have to start well, not lose too many wickets in the first three. If we look too far ahead, we may lose our way in the middle.”
Chasing 119 runs was no big deal, given the batting power that RPS possessed.
However, they faltered at the start, losing their star opener, Ajinkya Rahane in the fifth delivery of the very first over of their innings.
The wide outside the off-stump delivery from Bhuvaneshwar Kumar saw Rahane extend his bat toward the ball and succeeded only in giving a simple catch to Eoin Morgan at backward point. Morgan took the catch at the second attempt.
Neither Rahane nor RPS had opened their account.
It was a Faf du Plessis – Steven Smith show thereafter. The duo stayed together till the first delivery of the 9th over and added 80 runs for the second wicket.
Moises Henriques’ full length delivery to du Plessis had an extra bounce, as it nipped away off the seam. Faf wanted to run it down to the third-man region but the ‘extra’ bounce ended in a top edge that sailed through into the waiting gloves of the wicket-keeper, Naman Ojha.
Faf scored 30 runs off 21 deliveries with 3 fours and 2 sixes.
With just 39 runs required for a win, RPS skipper, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, walked in to give company to Smith.
However, he could face only 4 deliveries. He struck a boundary off the very first ball he faced from Henriques and then a single off the third ball he faced.
The last delivery of the 11th over bowled by Aashish Nehra to Dhoni, saw him unfurl his wrist to play a fierce cut. Tare, who kept his eyes on the ball, took a blinder. His reflex action took him nice and low as he pulled off a wonderful catch.
Dhoni had scored 5 runs. Smith remained unbeaten on 46* runs off 36 deliveries with 7 fours.
At that stage RPS were 93 runs for the loss of 4 wickets when the weather god again intervened and halted play.
As the intensity of the rain increased, the players made their way indoors. RPS were 34 runs ahead under Duckworth-Lewis method.
Finally the umpires had a discussion with the two captains and the play was called off.
RPS won the game under D/L method.
For his fine bowling spell (4-1-23-3) Ashok Dinda was adjudged the Player of the Match.
An upset David Warner, skipper SRH said, “This wasn”t what we expected. We made it look like they bowled well. The boys tried hard. When you lose wickets in clumps, it”s tough to build momentum. We have two more games at home
