IPL 10: Sunrisers Hyderabad’s batting masterclass propels them to their fifth win of the season

Sunrisers Hyderabad picked up their fifth win of the season and maintained their third spot in the Indian Premier League table with a fairly comfortable 26-run win against struggling Kings XI Punjab on Friday at Mohali.

Shikhar Dhawan (77) and David Warner (51) set the tone with a swashbuckling 107-run partnership at the top of the order. An eye-catchy cameo from New Zealand skipper Kane Williamson (54* from 27 balls) helped the defending champions get to a total of 207/3.

While Kings XI Punjab had the required run rate in check, they lost three wickets in the powerplay overs, which eventually cost them the match despite the best efforts of Shaun Marsh, who played a terrific hand by scoring a 50-ball 84. The hosts ended at 181/9 in their quota of overs. Here are some of the moments that stood out during the contest.

Marsh delivers in style

The Western Australian’s inconsistency with the willow has frustrated both franchise and country. The bowlers had no answers when Marsh decided to go after the bowling. The southpaw merciless with anything pitched outside the off-stump. He was also the only batsman to show a semblance of resistance against the wizardry of Rashid Khan.

Gifted with a strong bottom hand and the ability to clear boundaries with ease, there was only one result when he decided to play with a straight bat. Unfortunately, he ran out of partners and was dismissed at a critical stage in the match. He had too much ground to cover for his bowlers’ ineptitude. Marsh’s 50-ball 84 (laced with 14 boundaries and 2 sixes) will easily rank among his best in the long line of classy knocks that he has amassed for the Punjab franchise over the last decade.

SRH’s powerplay strategy

There are teams who go hell for leather during the first six overs, packing their top order with big hitters, and there is the Sunrisers way. Warner and Co. are usually watchful early on and back their big hitters in the middle order to take them to score in excess of 160.

That better explains why the side has lost fewer wickets than any other team during the powerplay overs.

However, their last-over loss to Rising Pune Supergiant, masterminded by MS Dhoni’s pyrotechnics forced a change in strategy. Here, SRH were showing more boundary-hitting intent, and it paid off with Dhawan and Warner bringing up 60 runs from the first six overs.

“In the team talk, we’d decided to up the run rate at the start of the innings,” Dhawan said. That the tone for his side getting a total in excess of 200.

Punjab’s bowling nightmare

It comes as quite a surprise that it was Glenn Maxwell’s part-timers emerged as the pick of the lot among Punjab’s toothless bowling attack. Ishant Sharma was at his notorious best: In an attempt to cramp the batsmen with yorker length deliveries, he was too full and straight in the early part of the innings.

In the ‘death’ overs, the lanky pacer aimed for full deliveries wide outside the off stump, a ploy that was too ordinary and predictable to ruffle a batsman of Kane Williamson’s class. It was poor from a frontline Indian bowler with nearly a decade of international experience under his belt.

The Punjab spinners – Axar Patel and KC Cariappa – were picked apart in their first couple of overs, and failed to deceive batsmen with their lengths, variation or turn. Medium-pacer Anureet Singh endured a harrowing outing with his two overs, regularly spraying the ball down the leg side. Mohit Sharma too, had a forgettable day in the office.

The magnificent Rashid Khan

The Afghanistan teenager continues to grow in stature and it doesn’t matter what his team’s demands are.

With the Punjab batsmen going at 11 runs an over at the start of the innings, the leg-spinner needed to apply the brakes. Rashid Khan’s answer? Two runs from two balls. Khan also picked up the wicket of Eoin Morgan at a crucial stage after pegging the England limited-overs captain at the crease with deliveries that was skidding into him. Khan finished with exceptional figures of 4-0-16-1, which saw him emerge as a surprise pick to walk away from the contest as the Man-of-the-Match

Brief score:

• Sunrisers Hyderabad 207/3 in 20 Overs (Shikhar Dhawan 77, Kane Williamson 54 not out; Glenn Maxwell 2/29) beat Kings XI Punjab 181/9 in 20 Overs (Shaun Marsh 84, Eoin Morgan 26; Siddarth Kaul 3/36, Ashish Nehra 3/42) by 26 runs.