Warner issues a ‘warning’ to the other teams: Well, the skipper of Sun Risers Hyderabad (SRH) issued a stern warning to the other teams, stating that they (SRH) are no ‘pushovers’, when they took on the mighty Mumbai Indians (MI), the defending champions, at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium, Uppal, Hyderabad.
Putting in the visitors to bat, SRH bowlers led by the young Barinder Sran, Bhuvaneshwar Kumar and Mustafizur Rehman, ensured that they were restricted to a small total.
Bhuvi, in fact, gave the initial breakthrough, removing the danger man, Martin Guptill, out of the way. A full length delivery aimed at the imaginary fourth stump on the offside, which Guptill tried to defend, but succeeded only in getting a faint top edge and the wicket keeper, Naman Ojha was more than happy to wallop it. This happened in the fourth delivery of the very first over.
Thereafter, MI never recovered. Only Ambatti Rayudu (54 off 49 deliveries) and in the lower middle order, Krunal Pandya (49* off 38 deliveries) could bring some respect to the scoreboard.
The duo added 63 valuable runs in 6.3 overs for the only enterprising partnership for the fifth wicket, before Rayudu was accounted for by the young Sran.
Rayudu’s half-century came in 43 deliveries with the help of 3 fours and 2 sixes.
Sran was the most successful bowler claiming 3 wickets from his spell of 4 overs, giving away 28 runs.
Chasing a small target of 143 runs, Warner made it clear that he was going to bat till the end and take his team to the podium.
Losing Dhawan, very cheaply, Warner added 62 runs in 9.2 overs for the second wicket alongwith Moises Henriques (20), then added another 34 runs in 4.1 overs for the third wicket alongwith Eoin Morgan (11) and finally added 45 runs in just 3.1 overs alongwith Deepak Hooda for the fourth wicket.
Warner was in a destructive mood and was the major contributor in all these three useful partnerships.
SRH reached the target in 17.1 overs, losing the wickets of Dhawan, Henriques and Morgan, all being claimed by Tim Southee in his four-over spell giving away 24 runs.
Warner’s half century came in 42 deliveries studded with 5 fours and a solitary six. He remained unbeaten on 90* runs scored off just 59 deliveries with 7 fours and 4 sixes.
SRH registered their first victory in three games while MI lost their third game (out of four played) and are languishing at the bottom of the table.
David Warner played a match-winning knock, dominant and flawless, throughout. He stayed unbeaten and ensured that his side got through.
He was adjudged the Player of the Match.
Speaking at the post-match presentation, Warner said, “”I”ll put it down to the bowlers. I asked them during the meetings to execute and back their plans. With two batsmen in, it looked like we could be chasing 160. The key thing today was the ball actually swung for 20 overs. Just about me playing my game, I got dropped again, and that ball normally deceives me, has been a theme throughout my career.”
A visibly dejected MI skipper, Rohit Sharma said, “”When you get that sort of score, you can only hope that the bowlers deliver but you can”t expect a lot from them. We have to step up as a batting unit. We need to see what we can do as a team. We have a lot of experience in this squad. All games we lost, we haven”t scored enough runs. I don”t want to press the panic button, its too early, We have been in the same position previously. Southee was superb, wasn”t he?”
