Dependency on Williamson, Sandeep’s consistency and Rahane’s foiled plan: RR vs SRH talking points

118 against Mumbai Indians: Defended.
132 against Kings XI Punjab: Defended.
151 against Rajasthan Royals: Defended.

What’s a chaseable total against Sunrisers? Why do teams falter in chases, even after good starts, against them? What’s the trick to score against the SRH bowlers in the dying stages of a match?

If Kane Williamson repeats this trick of defending modest scores for one more time, the question might soon be: how do you beat the masters of defence?

For the third straight time, a team looked like it was well on its way to beat the Sunrisers but faltered at the end.

And, they have been doing this without one of their key bowlers, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, in the playing XI for all three games. But this doesn’t make them the favourites for this year’s title. Yet. For they have a few issues to sort out in the batting unit. First among them:

The overdependence on Kane Williamson

The victory against Rajasthan Royals, unlike Sunrisers’ last two triumphs, can’t be called a heist. For on Sunday, they put up a better score than they did in the last two games. But the opposition bowler Ish Sodhi still called Sunrisers’ 151 a “little under par.” But Sunrisers looked set to score at least 160 at one stage. When Kane Williamson was batting. And, it’s been a recurring theme in this tournament: when Williamson’s still out in the middle, it would seem like the Sunrisers bowlers will have a decent total to defend. But once he gets out, the batting line-up huffs, puffs, struggles and falls to a slightly below par score.

Williamson has hitherto made a little over 27% of Sunrisers’ runs this season so far. None of the other players have scored even half the runs he has in this season.

Without David Warner, the Sunrisers were expected to struggle to score and chase big totals. But except Williamson, none of the other batsmen have been consistent. Shikhar Dhawan’s in the midst of a lean patch. Manish Pandey, despite making two fifties, have struggled to get going. And, Yusuf Pathan’s place in the side is becoming doubtful. Alex Hales supported his skipper in a 92-run second wicket stand on Sunday. The team management might give him more opportunity to see if he can ameliorate the former champions’ batting woes.

Sandeep’s more than covered for Bhuvi

Sunrisers’ management have been meticulous in designing their bowling arsenal. Even if a key bowler’s injured, they will have a replacement who’ll do the job with almost the same efficiency. Case in point: Sandeep Sharma, who replaced Bhuvneshwar Kumar.

His spells in the tournament so far:

Williamson and the rest of the Sunriers’ management, it seems, entrust Sandeep with the task of opening the bowling. It serves two purposes.

One, the obvious. The right-arm medium pacer’s accuracy has been deadly this tournament. He quickly finds the best spot in the pitch for him to hit. Sure, pace he doesn’t have. But he compensates for that with his other tricks, including the now-popular pacers’ weapon: the knuckle ball. With his accuracy and variations, he’s tied up the likes of Chris Gayle and KL Rahul. So far, he’s the most economical bowler in this IPL at an unbelievable economy rate of 4.40. No one else has a sub-five rate.

On Sunday, against Rajasthan, he bowled three overs in the Powerplay and gave away only nine runs.

The second reason is that he reads the pitch very quickly and helps the other bowlers in finding the right areas to bowl. This he told after the Sunrisers’ victory against Kings XI last Thursday.

“I gave them that suggestion and you must have seen that Basil Thampi got Gayle with a slower ball. So I just try to convey this message to the other bowlers as soon as possible,” he’d said.

Sandeep has arguably had his best-ever start to the IPL. He attributed a part of his success to the captaincy of Williamson.

“The best part is that Kane is always positive. His advice even when Gayle and Rahul were going strong was just not to look at the scoreboard but to give off our best and try to take wickets. That worked for us. If the leader is so positive, you can only expect positive vibes for the entire team,” Sandeep said.

He’s made it difficult for the team management to exclude him from the playing XI when Bhuvneshwar returns. And, the other Indian pacer in the team, Sid Kaul holds the purple cap. So, it’s a problem of plenty of the Sunrisers management in the pace department.

Rahane anchored well but couldn’t finish

None of Sunrisers’ opponents were in a dire situation after the Powerplay in the last three games. They didn’t have a mammoth target to chase in the rest of the 14 overs and also had enough wickets in hand.

Mumbai and Kings XI accumulated many dot balls, let the pressure get to them, lost wickets in quick succession. Both were found wanting of an anchor with a cool head, who could have taken them over the line. Because most of them perished going for the big hits. Which is why, for the most part of Rajasthan’s chase, it seemed that Ajinkya Rahane knew how to get out of the Sunrisers’ trap.

His six off Rashid Khan in the first delivery of the 18th over raised Rajasthan’s hopes. But he could manage only three runs of three balls in the next over and was off strike for the last over when his team needed 21. When he was on strike the third ball and Royals needed 15 off the next four, he mistimed a shot for a single. The strategy of leaving it till the last didn’t work for Rahane as he couldn’t manufacture the big shots when required.