Hyderabad: People were expecting a great rivalry between Dale Steyn and Chris Gayle and they weren’t disappointed in the match between Sunrisers Hyderabad and Royal Challengers Bangalore as the result was decided by the ‘super over’ here on Sunday. And this super-over is surely going to be remembered for a very long-time.
First it was Vinay Kumar who got smacked for 20 runs which included two huge sixes from Cameron White and later it was Gayle who came to the party but fell short of pulling off a sensational win after he failed to pull-off a last ball six to lead his team to victory. RCB scored 15 runs and lost the match to Sunrisers by five runs.
Chasing 130, Sunrisers had a very shaky start as they lost their first wicket in the second over of the match. Parthiv Patel departed after scoring just two runs. He was dismissed by Moises Henriques who was playing his first match. Moises Henriques bowled with good rhythm and that earned him one more wicket that of Cameron White who added just five runs to the team’s total.
Meanwhile Akshath Reddy batted with more sensibility and tried to apply himself on a low and slow wicket. Akshath got out after scoring a very important 23 runs. Debutant Hanuma Vihari came in to bat and forged in a good partnership with his captain Kumar Sangakkara. And when it looked the duo would rope in the match quite easily, Sangakkara got out after scoring 16 runs and it changed the course of the match.
However, Vihari continued showing his resilience and great temperament by chipping in with singles and doubles and reduced the target quite significantly. Though he was running out of partners from the other end, he kept rotating the strike. With seven runs required in the last over of the innings and Vihari on-strike, Hyderabad was having an upper hand but Vinay Kumar showed some brilliant bowling by coming up with back to back Yorkers and made sure that they will not lose the match that easily. The match was tied and got into the super over.
Vihari played a brilliant knock of 44 runs and was adjudged Man-of-the-Match.
Earlier, RCB had a poor start as they lost the wicket of Chris Gayle in the second over of the innings. He was dismissed for just one run by a debutant off-spinner Hanuma Vihari. His dismissal brought the RCB captain, Virat Kohli, to the middle. But soon Tilakaratne Dilshan got out to a length delivery from Ishant Sharma which uprooted his off-stump and left the RCB a lot to worry about. In came Karun Nair, but he too was adjudged leg before wicket on the bowling of Amit Mishra who deceived him in the flight quite brilliantly.
Moises Henriques joined his captain and a good partnership with Kohli. They put up a brilliant 43 runs stand to rebuild the RCB’s innings. Kohli and Henriques kept picking up odd boundaries to keep the momentum going. When it looked everything was going well for RCB, they lost the crucial wicket of Virat Kohli who played a great knock of 46 runs off 44 balls. After Kohli dismissal, Henriques took the charge but was running out of partners at the other end. Henriques hit Dale Steyn for couple of boundaries before getting out to Ishant Sharma who disguised him really well with a slower one. He scored 44 runs. RCB’s innings came to an end at 130 when Vinay Kumar lost his wicket in that very same over.