Sunrisers Hyderabad entered the IPL final for the second time after a 13-run win over Kolkata Knight Riders on Friday night at Eden Gardens. And, for a long time – while batting and bowling – it seemed like they wouldn’t make it. They were reeling at 134 for six with just 12 balls to go when Rashid strode into the middle. The wild swing he took and the resultant boundary was just a sign of things to come. In the next nine balls he faced, he hit four sixes, two fours and added another 30 runs for his team. From struggling to get to 150, Sunrisers finished at 174/7 – well ahead of what they would have hoped for in the middle overs and what ended up as a match-winning total.

And, the runs from Rashid’s bat were just a bonus. It’s with the ball he’s truly fearsome – and his already enormous reputation grew a little more on Friday night.. In his four overs, he picked up the crucial wickets of Chris Lynn (who threatened to take the game away from SRH), Andre Russell and Robin Uthappa giving away less than five runs an over.

Advertisement

When Knight Riders’ Shubman Gill and Shivam Mavi desperately sought a six in the last over, Rashid was there in the deep to take the catches. He was here, there and everywhere on Friday. And, Twitter rightly

Here’s the list of amazing things that Rashid did against the Knight Riders:-

And here are the amazing things that people said about him. First praise from a fellow spinner:

A little tongue in cheek...

Also, a sound warning to the Indian Test batsmen, who will be taking him on in Bengaluru in June.