Sunrisers Hyderabad 266 for 7 (Head 89, Shahbaz 59*, Abhishek 46, Kuldeep 4-55) beat Delhi Capitals 199 (Fraser-McGurk 65, Pant 44, Natarajan 4-19, Reddy 2-17, Markande 2-26) by 67 runs
A powerplay from another planet
The first over of the match went for 19, and ended up being the lowest-scoring over of Sunrisers’ powerplay.
Head was batting on 84 off 26 balls at the six-over mark, and his opening partner was scoring significantly quicker than him: Abhishek was batting on 40 off 10 at that point.
The hitting was a relentless blur, and no line, length or style of bowling seemed to have any power to stop it. So true was the pitch at the Arun Jaitley Stadium, which was hosting its first game of the season, and so single-minded the two openers in their desire to hit every possible ball to the boundary. Of the 36 balls bowled in the powerplay – Capitals could have given themselves an ironic pat on the back for bowling no wides or no-balls in that time – 13 went for four and 11 for six.
Abhishek hit the first non-powerplay ball of the match for six too, stepping out to Kuldeep and going through his shot despite not reaching the pitch of the ball. This had happened in the fifth over too, off the same bowler, and it seemed to reiterate to Capitals’ bowlers that they were on a hiding to nothing.
But sometimes a wicket can come out of nowhere, especially if the batters are going after everything, and this is what happened off the next ball, as a diving Axar intercepted an uppish drive at cover.
Aiden Markram came in at No. 3 ahead of Heinrich Klaasen – who is more noted as a spin-hitter – and fell in the same over, slapping a not particularly good ball from Kuldeep – shortish and wide – straight to cover. But sometimes, even an ordinary ball from a wristspinner can behave oddly, sticking in the pitch slightly longer, or bouncing a little more than expected.
Kuldeep’s value came to the fore again in his next over – after Klaasen hit him for a pair of sixes – when Head failed to get hold of a ball that wasn’t quite short enough to pull. He had put that length away easily in the powerplay, but there was a man back at long-on now and he was out for 89 off 32.
Klaasen is a master at pulling not-quite-pullable lengths against the spinners, but on the day he was done in by an Axar skidder that beat his inside edge to bowl him. Sunrisers were a surreal 154 for 4 in 9.1 overs.