Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) has finally opened their account in terms of winning in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2021 on Wednesday as they registered Punjab Kings in a low-scoring Match 14 at the MA Chidambaram Stadium. Chasing the second-lowest target of the 14th edition of the IPL, SRH openers Jonny Bairstow and David Warner laid a solid platform with their 73-run partnership after which Kane Williamson joined the action.
Along with Williamson, Bairstow guided the team to victory in the 19th over with the unbroken second-wicket partnership which lasted for 48 runs. Bairstow ended up as the highest run-getter for SRH as he scored 63 not out while Warner made 37 off as many balls. Williamson, playing his first match of the season, remained unbeaten on 16.
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The win helped SRH register their first points this season and go past KKR from the 5th position on the table as they had managed to maintain a decent net run-rate than the Shah Rukh Khan co-owned team. PBKS traded places with SRH and are now standing at the bottom of the table. This was only the third occasion when a team managed to successfully chase down a target out of 8 matches at the Chepauk in IPL 2021.
However, a lot of credit for their win goes to SRH’s bowlers, who had a phenomenal outing in the first half of the game, especially by Khaleel Ahmed and Abhishek Sharma. Punjab’s batsmen never managed to get going as they kept losing wickets right from the start with captain KL Rahul suffering a rare failure, who was departed after scoring just 4 runs in the 4th over of the innings bowled by Bhuvneshwar Kumar.
Rahul surpassed the 5000-run mark in T20 cricket after taking a single off the first ball of the match. He became the 2nd fastest batsman after his PBKS teammate Chris Gayle as he surpassed the landmark and smashed Virat Kohli’s record to become the fastest Indian to enter the 5k club.
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But unlike in the previous matches, Rahul failed to play a good knock and got out for his 2nd single-digit score this season. Khaleel then joined the action and removed Mayank Agarwal before getting the late wickets of Shahrukh Khan and Fabian Allen in the death overs to help SRH bowl out PBKS for 120 in 19.4 overs. Abhishek Sharma bowled a brilliant spell in the middle overs by sending back the in-form Deepak Hooda (13) and Moises Henriques (14).
Here is how Twitteracted reacted to SRH’s win:
AND… WE WIN!!!! 🧡🧡
— SunRisers Hyderabad (@SunRisers) April 21, 2021
Go go , go Johnny go , go Johnny go, Johnny B (Goode) #ipl2021 #srh #chuckberry
— Rohan Gavaskar (@rohangava9) April 21, 2021
Finally on the mark @SunRisers. Well done Bairstow,Khaleel and Abhishek for wonderful performance. #SRHvsPBKS
— Irfan Pathan (@IrfanPathan) April 21, 2021
Apt finish for Punjab who right now have no idea about their game. Can't say new team, the mgmt and personnel are same. Need to execute better to stay in the game.
— Nikhil 🏏 (@CricCrazyNIKS) April 21, 2021
Good for Jonny Bairstow staying in good form, but these Chennai games in the IPL are starting to stinnnnnnnnnnnnk. #IPL2021
— Dre Harrison (@DreHarrison101) April 21, 2021
Hindi commentary on Hotstar is total fun value. Bairstow 50: John jonny Bairstow. Sunil Narine on screen: Narayan Narayan (Narada chant in movies) . SRH won: Ready to taste Hyderabadi Biriyani. #IPL2021 #SRHvsPBKS
— Unnikrishnan (@unni1974) April 21, 2021
Johnny Bairstow in this IPL 2021:-
55(40).
12(13).
43(22).
63*(56).#IPL2021— Tanuj Singh (@ImTanujSingh) April 21, 2021
As expected, spin has played a greater part in Chennai as the tournament has progressed. The first match there saw 34% of the deliveries bowled by spinners, for this match that figure is 53%. #IPL2021
— The CricViz Analyst (@cricvizanalyst) April 21, 2021
