IPL24: CSK suffers consecutive losses as SRH win in style

 

Chennai Super Kings lost against Delhi Capitals in the last match.  This time the loss is against Sunrisers Hyderabad.  Mahendra Singh Dhoni's team lost two consecutive matches.  Batting first, Chennai scored a modest 165 runs.  Hyderabad won the low scoring  match with 11 balls to spare.

 Hyderabad captain Pat Cummins won the toss and sent Chennai into bat.  In the fourth over, Bhuvneshwar Kumar took the wicket of Rachin Ravindra.  He scored 12 runs off 9 balls.  Chennai lost their first wicket at 25 runs.  Captain Ruturaj Gaikwad could not stay at the crease for long.  He was dismissed for 26 off 21 balls.  After losing two openers, Ajinkya Rahane kept the side going with some sparkling shots .  Shivam Dube started playing big shots on the opposite side as he took on the spinners . 

 Shivam is being sent in by Chennai to bat at number four.  The Indian all-rounder is using the opportunity to bat upwards.  Shivam hit four sixes on Friday.  Yuvraj Singh is excited to see his sixes.  The former India all-rounder said, “It's good to see Shivam hitting the shots with such ease.  I think he should be included in the T20 World Cup squad.  He can turn the game at any time.  He has that power."  Shivam (45)  did not understand the slow bouncer from Cummins .   Bhuvneshwar Kumar took the catch 5 runs away from the half century.

Rahane was flawless on this day.  He scored 35 runs off 30 balls.  He held one side.  But after Shivam got out, Rahane went back to the dressing room.  He gave a catch to Jaydev Unadkat at backward point.

 Darryl Mitchell (13) and Ravindra Jadeja (31*) added 33 runs.  But they played 27 balls.  This sluggish innings slowed Chennai's run rate.  With the last three balls to spare, Mahendra Singh Dhoni came into the field.  Hearing the screams of the Hyderabad Stadium, it felt like the game was being played in Chennai.  Dhoni could not score more than one run.  Chennai's innings ended on 165 runs.

All the SRH bowlers put on a great team performance to get 1 wicket each except Abhishek & Markande both went wicketless .

 Sunrisers scored 277 runs at this Hyderabad ground on March 27.  A target of 166 runs in that field is not that big.  The way Abhishek Sharma started, Hyderabad started the race to victory very easily.  Abhishek scored a higly explosive 37 runs off 12 balls.  He was plundering runs at will & overshadowed  Travis Head, who was dropped in the slips at 0 ,  scored 31 off 24 balls as SRH reached 78 in 6 overs in belligerent  style . Aden Markram scored 50 runs off 36 balls to hold the innings together before he was lbw to Moeen trying to reverse sweep .  Hyderabad scored 132 runs in 14 overs under the influence of these three batters.

 From there it took 25 balls for Hyderabad to get the next 34 runs.  Shahbaz Ahmed and Heinrich Klaasen couldn't play the big shots early on.  Well, Chennai's Moeen Ali and Ravindra Jadeja didn't let their big shots play.  These two spinners reined in the run rate.  Shahbaz (18) was out lbw to Moeen for 18 runs but Nitish Reddy (14*) ensured the win with a winning hit of 6 .

 Hyderabad had no difficulty in winning as there were not many runs left.  They won the match with 11 balls left. Abhishek for his blistering batting was the player of the match .