Sunrisers Hyderabad defeated Chennai Super Kings by 6 wickets in a thrilling match. This is CSK’s second consecutive defeat. First-placed Chennai set a target of 166 runs for the match played at the Rajiv Gandhi Stadium on Friday. In response, Hyderabad won by 18.1 overs on the back of Aiden Markram’s half-century. Shivam Dubey played a brilliant innings of 45 runs for Chennai. Ajinkya Rahane contributed 35 runs. Abhishek batted brilliantly for Hyderabad. However, Hyderabad’s batting power also waned after the powerplay overs. In such a situation, the bowlers ensured a comeback for Chennai but SRH still had a lot of wickets left so the team’s batsmen took an aggressive approach even on a slow pitch and gave the team the win.
By the 15th over, SRH’s score was 135 runs for 3 wickets and they needed 31 runs in the last 5 overs. This seems like a very easy result but it wasn’t easy for SRH to achieve on a low scoring pitch. On the third ball of the 16th over, Moeen Ali dismissed Shahbaz Ahmed, who was on the crease, for 18 runs. The game had become exciting and SRH needed 15 runs in the last 18 balls. Tushar Deshpande’s 9 runs in the 18th over had made the match a bit one-sided. Hyderabad needed just six runs in the last two overs to win. Nitish Reddy gave SRH a big win by hitting a six on the first ball of the 19th over.
Travis Head’s 31 runs in 24 balls and Abhishek Sharma’s 37 runs in 12 balls also played an important role in Hyderabad’s win. Abhishek hit three fours and four sixes in this innings. In the final overs, Nitish Reddy played a cameo innings of 14 runs in 8 balls, who was replaced in this match by the currently ill Mayank Agarwal. This is CSK’s second consecutive defeat while it was SRH’s second win in four games.
Aidan Markram overshadowed Shivam Dubey
Chennai Super Kings struggled first but CSK seemed to be in trouble due to slow innings of 26 runs and 35 runs from Ruturaj Gaikwad and Ajinkya Rahane. In such a situation, Shivam Dubey’s innings of 45 runs in 24 balls at a strike rate of 187.5 played an important role in taking the team to a respectable score of 165 runs. On the other hand, Abhishek Sharma and Travis Head gave SRH a good start but after their dismissal, Aiden Markram took over the innings. Markram played an innings of 50 runs in 36 balls, hitting 4 fours and 1 six.
