Sunrisers Hyderabad put up its third 250 plus score of IPL 2024 when they scored 266-7 against Delhi Capitals at Delhi.
Sunrisers Hyderabad have been destructive this year with their extraordinary batting exploits. Their batters have been in such form that stopping them is looking extremely difficult right now. Currently, it seems like every batter in the team is playing with the aim to smash the ball out of the park irrespective of the situation.
This tactic seems to be working as well. The batting-friendly pitches in this IPL have suited their style of play as well. They have applied the same strategy of attacking batting and defensive bowling in almost every win till now and have moved to the second spot in the points table.
Against Delhi Capitals on Saturday (April 20), Sunrisers put up their third 250 plus total of the season. Openers Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma started smashing the ball from the first over and kept on hitting the boundaries. Both took SRH to 125-0 by the end of the powerplay. It is the highest ever powerplay score by any team in T20 cricket. SRH lost some quick wickets and slowed down in the mid overs. But thanks to brilliant knocks from Shahbaz Ahmed and Nitish Reddy, they finished on a mammoth 266-7.
Former India opener Aakash Chopra reckons that the hitting form of SRH’s batters is at a different level altogether. He also felt that it is illegal to play cautiously in this team.
“What sort of punishment are you giving? They were hitting sixes one after the other. They are hitting at a different level. The interesting is that Travis Head scored 89 runs off 32 balls with the help of six sixes and Abhishek Sharma ran even faster than him. He scored 46 runs off 12 balls. He also hit six sixes,” Chopra reckoned.
“Whoever was coming was getting hit. Then they lost three-four wickets at one stage and you felt what would happen. Nitish Reddy, Shahbaz Ahmed and Abdul Samad had the license to play cautiously as it would still work out. However, I feel it’s illegal to play cautiously in this team,” the renowned commentator added.
Chopra also added that left-arm wristspinner Kuldeep Yadav’s four wickets helped in slowing down the SRH’s innings for a while. Amidst all the carnage, Kuldeep produced figures of 4-55 in 4 overs and picked up the big wickets of Abhishek Sharma, Travis Head, Aiden Markram, and Nitish Reddy.
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Chasing 267 to win, Delhi Capitals could only score 199 runs and were all out in the final over. Jake Fraser-McGurk and Abishek Porel had a partnership of 84 runs in just 30 balls. But once both the youngsters were dismissed, Delhi’s innings couldn’t come back on track.
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