IPL24 : Par timers send Rajasthan Royals in a spin as SRH march into IPL final

 

Sunrisers Hyderabad reaches IPL final.  They will face Kolkata Knight Riders on Sunday.  The number one and two teams in the league stage have reached the IPL final seven times in a row.  Hyderabad defeated Rajasthan Royals by 36 runs in the final on Friday.

 Sanju Samson feared dew on the field in Chennai.  So he won the toss and sent Sunrisers Hyderabad to bat first.  But there was no dew on Friday.  As a result, Hyderabad had no difficulty in bowling.  But Trent Boult rattled at the beginning.  The left-arm pacer left Pat Cummins in quite a quandary.

 Boult gave 13 runs in the first over and took the wicket of Abhishek Sharma who got out to an airy shot after striking a 6 & a 4 through dazzling shots .  Coming to bowl in his third over, Boult took the wickets of Rahul Tripathi and Aden Markram.  Hyderabad lost 3 wickets in 5 overs.  But their aggressive batting did not let the run rate slow down.  They picked up 68 runs in the powerplay .  Tripathi scored a breathtaking 37 runs off 15 balls as he lauched a fierce assault on the Rajasthan bowlers with a mixture of orthodox & unorthodox shots .  That did not slow down Hyderabad's run rate though Boult dismissed Tripathy & Markram (1) in the same over 

 Travis Head has repeatedly won matches for Hyderabad in this IPL.  But the Rajasthan bowlers did not allow him to swing the bat in that way in Chennai.  34 runs off 28 balls came from Head .  He was dismissed by Sandeep Sharma's slower short ball  just when he began to look dangerous after bagging 2 ducks in previous 2 games .  Sandeep later picked up Heinrich Klassen with a brilliant yorker but not before  South African batsman scored a dazzling 50 runs off 34 balls.  It was he who gave Hyderabad a total to fight back after they had lost a clump of wickets in the middle including the wickets of Nitish Reddy (5) and Samad (0) to Avesh Khan off successive balls .

Bengal all-rounder Shahbaz Ahmed should be praised.  Hyderabad did not keep him in the first eleven.  But he was introduced after 6 wickets fell in 14 overs.  Shahbaz is an all-rounder.  As he can do spin bowling, he can give confidence to the team with the bat.  This plan of Hyderabad worked.  Shahbaz scored 18 runs off 18 balls.  He held up one end as Klaasen played the big shots from the opposite side.  Their stand of 43 runs became very important for Hyderabad who were under pressure after losing successive wickets.

Rajasthan Royals bowlers did well to restrict SRH to 175 and Boult , Avesh and Sandeep were the successful trio with 3 ,3 and 2 wickets respectively . 

 Player of the match Shahbaz did the real work with the ball.  He took 3 wickets with 23 runs in 4 overs.  Shahbaz took the wickets of  Jaiswal, Riyan Parag and Ravichandran Ashwin.  Other batsmen could not score too many runs against his bowling.  Shahbaz picked up Jaiswal in his first over.  That turned the match.  Parag and Ashwin took wickets in the 12th over.  Shahbaz took two wickets in one over and brought Hyderabad to victory.

Rajasthan started sluggishly in the powerplay as Cadmore (10) struggled before Cummins dismissed him. Jaiswal gradually started to play confident shots and increasingly looked good for his 21 ball 42 after showcasing some sparkling drives and pulls before a rush of blood against Shahbaz was his undoing and his dismissal started a collapse for the Royals with Samson (10) , Parag (6) , Heytmer(4) and Ashwin (0) rattled by partime the left arm spin twins of Shahbaz(3/23)  and Abhishek (2/24) .

 Dhruv Jurel fought hard for Rajasthan.  While the rest of the team's batters could not, he fought to the end.  Jaiswal went down to open and scored a sparkling  42 runs.  None of the rest of the batters could cross the 20-run barrier.  Jurel scored a dazzling 56 runs off 35 balls.  He remained undefeated.  But the team could not win.  Rajasthan are out from the IPL 2024 after losing the qualifier two which will doubtless make their fans gutted as RR was one of the most strong and well balanced teams in this season .