SRH vs Punjab Kings: A Dramatic 2 Runs Win as SRH Survive Another Shashank-Ashutosh Blitz
Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) clinched a thrilling victory against Punjab Kings in a nail-biting encounter, defending a target of 182 runs.
Overall With the support of the SRH quicks, Nitish Kumar Reddy led the team over the finish line.
Punjab Kings 180 for 6 (Shashank 46*, Ashutosh 33*, Bhuvneshwar 2-32) were defeated by Sunrisers Hyderabad 182 for 9 (Reddy 64, Samad 25, Arshdeep 4-29, Harshal 2-30) by two runs.
In the last over, Sunrisers Hyderabad let Ashutosh Sharma get three catches, leaving Punjab Kings needing 29 runs to win. Two of them almost turned the match by going over the ropes for sixes. However, Kings required nine deliveries, and after the third failed, there was just one left. Kings lost their pursuit of 183 runs, which gave Sunrisers their third victory of the season, by barely two runs, despite Shashank Singh hitting the final ball far over the long-off boundary.
Jaydev Unadkat bowled the final over, which ended at 26. Inevitably, Harshal Patel dropped Unadkat on the last delivery of Sunrisers’ innings, and the ball bounced up over the rope for six. precise edges.
Had Shashank and Ashutosh managed to pull off another heist against the Gujarat Titans, as they did five days prior, what a dream it would have been. Eventually, though, they had too many to get in the last chase over.
Ashutosh And Shashank At It Once More
Midway through the 16th over, with Kings at 114 for 6, they united. With 24 balls left, the needed rate, which was 15.33 at the time, quickly increased to 16.75. For every one of those four overs, a different bowler was used, and they were all sent to the dry cleaners.
And Shashank faced Bhuvneshwar Kumar in the seventeenth. Over the short third first ball of the over, he got a streaky outside edge for four. The next ball was cut to deep extra cover, and the next was hammered wide long-off.
After that, Ashutosh kept the Kings in contention by swatting and ramping Pat Cummins for two consecutive fours in the eighteenth over. With Kings needing to score 39 in the next two overs, the chances were still in favor of SRH. Unadkat had 28 to defend in the 20th after T Natajaran was removed for ten, a great over in the grand scheme of things.
The last over for Unadkat began with a six, two wides, and another six. In two balls, fourteen runs were gone. However, he bounced back, giving up just six runs in his next three deliveries. The final ball was delivered by Shashank for a six, but Kings just failed to cross the boundary.
Nitish Rescued SRHÂ
It would have been Nitish Kumar Reddy’s heart in his mouth during the last over’s devastation. Ultimately, he had mishandled the opening ball of the last over, which was Ashutosh’s catch. However, Reddy’s innings of 64 off 37 balls lifted SRH to 182 after saving them from a dire 64 for 4 in the tenth over.
Also Read: IPL Winners List From 2008 to 2023
During the devastating final over, Nitish Kumar Reddy would have had his heart in his mouth. In the end, he had fumbled Ashutosh’s catch, the first ball of the final over. Reddy’s 64 off 37 balls, nevertheless, helped SRH to 182 after he had kept them from going down to 64 for 4 in the tenth over.
Arshdeep Shines In The Powerplay
Arshdeep Singh had four wickets in as many IPL 2024 games going into this one. He doubled his season total against SRH his route to 4 for 29. The first of those occurred as Dhawan reversed direction and backpedaled from mid-off on the second ball of the third over in order to catch Head. After two deliveries, Arshdeep got Markram to edge behind the wicketkeeper with an angled delivery. With Arshdeep’s opening spell stats of 2-0-8-2, SRH was limited to 40 for 3, their lowest powerplay of the season.
Arshdeep had taken just one wicket in 20 balls in the final overs of the season prior to Tuesday night. 11.70 was his economy rate. However, he was summoned in for the final overs against SRH, where he claimed two of the four wickets.
On the third ball of the 17th over, Arshdeep went full and wide to Abdul Samad, who hit deep point, and Reddy and Samad had scored 50 in just 19 balls. After that, Reddy was dismissed by the quick bowler, who could only loft a low full ball to long on. Although Arshdeep‘s statistics were somewhat spoiled by Shahbaz Ahmed’s 15 from the 19th over of the innings, the quicks still had a great day even if they ended up losing.
Cummins Praises Nitish’s All Round Brilliance
For Nitish Kumar Reddy, 20, this last week has been unlike any other. Four nights ago, Sunrisers Hyderabad defeated Chennai Super Kings, and the Andhra all-rounder scored an undefeated eight balls fourteen. On Tuesday, however, he was more influential as he struck a match-changing 37-ball 64 to turn a struggling Sunrisers innings from 64 for 4 to 182 for 9.
His batting contribution wasn’t the only important factor. With Punjab Kings attempting a comeback, Nitish, a lively medium-pace bowler in the mid-130s, removed Jitesh Sharma in the 16th over.
Even more spectacular than the wicket was the way he set himself up, sending Jitesh hacking in the direction of the longer boundary after pitching a slower bouncer into the pitch. Nitish completed with three overs and 1 for 33. It makes sense why skipper Pat Cummins was so happy with Nitish’s performance.
Cummins remarked, “He was amazing.” “In this game, he went straight to the top of the order, was excellent in the field, and also bowled three overs.” It was incredible that he could bring us to 180 right away.”
Although Nitish doesn’t seem to say much, he seems happy to be able to help. He most likely only got the chance because Sunrisers decided Abhishek Sharma was too good to bat at No. 3 because to his form. Abhishek made a big impression against CSK with a 12-ball 37 to set the tone for their chase of 166, which they easily accomplished with 11 balls remaining while Mayank Agarwal was ill.
Because of that performance, the team management might have been persuaded to stick with Abhishek and Travis Head at the top, which would have allowed Nitish to hold onto his spot even though Agarwal was declared fit for this game. Nitish returned the favor by hitting five sixes and four fours in a back-to-the-wall knock.
At the presentation, Nitish stated, “For me, it is a big contribution for my team and myself.” I’ve been telling myself that I need to have confidence in myself and that I need to support the squad. I did not want to take on the seamers since they were bowling quite well. I wanted to assault them when the spinners came on, so I did.”
At one point, it appeared that the game might be much closer than it actually was. That was caused by a number of catches that fell in the penultimate over, two of which were tipped over the ropes for sixes in the final over. With Shashank Singh and Ashutosh Sharma giving Sunrisers a serious fright, Kings fell three short of their target of 29 off the final over bowled by Jaydev Unadkat.
Cummins summarized Sunrisers’ close victory by highlighting their strategy. “It was an amazing cricket match,” he remarked. “They started off bowling pretty effectively, and we did well to reach 182 before successfully defending it. The impression of having incredibly deep batting is one of the impact player’s greatest qualities. We make an effort to be upbeat and aggressive.
“Even if you score 150–160, you will still lose nine games out of ten. We anticipated that the new ball would be significant. We felt reasonably satisfied [with our score]. We believed it would be beneficial if Bhuvi [Bhuvneshwar Kumar] and I could get off to a wicket right away after witnessing what happened to them with the new ball. We simply sought to give the bowlers the best chance of success because we have an abundance of left- and right-armers.”
The skipper of the Kings, Shikhar Dhawan, bemoaned their top-order collapse during the powerplay. In the fifth over, the Kings were struggling at 20 for 3, with Dhawan, Prabhsimran Singh, and Jonny Bairstow all back in the dug out. Shashank and Ashutosh’s late burst, which saw them put up 66 runs off of just 27 balls for the seventh wicket, gave them a chance to win.
Kings couldn’t help but think back to the six they let up off the last ball when Harshal Patel wasted a chance at the long-on boundary, even as the penultimate ball was smashed for a six.
“Ashutosh and Shasank made excellent knocks. We kept them to a respectable total, in my opinion. We lost the game because, regrettably, we were unable to capitalize on the opening six overs,” Dhawan stated. That really hurt our pinch. Since there wasn’t much bounce to the wicket, each person needed to devise better plans.
We could have stopped ten or fifteen more runs, and that also had an impact. As a batting team, we were ineffective. The performance of the highest order is crucial. We have optimism and confidence for the next game because of the performance of Ashutosh and Shasank. We need to develop and do better in some areas.”
