SRH win six-hitting contest

Hyderabad hit 22 to beat Bengaluru’s 16; Head and Cummins silence home crowd again as RCB'S miserable run continues

Not really there

Brian Lara summed up the night on air. “Thanks for the entertainment” he said as Hyderabad wrapped up a 25-run win. How else could one sum up a night where a record 549 runs were scored and as many as 38 sixes were hit in a T20 game. Make no mistake, when Hyderabad put on 287/3 the game was definitely sealed.

That RCB managed 262/7 is remarkable, but there was an understandable ‘nothingto-lose approach’ that they had during the chase. When Saurav Chauhan fell as the fifth wicket in the 10th over, the only lingering question was how long will it take for RCB to fold. But with Dinesh Karthik smashing a 35-ball 83, the innings prolonged till the 20th over, thus reducing the margin of defeat.

Travis provides a Headstart

Not that Travis Head needed any reminder, but as his captain Pat Cummins suggested that 240 would be the par score on the night, the opener went about taking it seriously.

What followed was T20 cricket at its absolute best in ideal conditions for batting.

Short boundaries and a toothless attack to go with a pitch rolled out with runs in it meant that as long as a batsman connected with the ball and found the gap, runs were there for the taking.

Head isn’t the sort of batsman to miss out on such gifts.

From the moment he got going with a flick off the second ball he faced, he straightaway hit the top gear.

From there on, he was on auto-pilot mode and by the time he went back to the dugout in the 13th over, the Aussie lefthander had hit 9 boundaries and eight sixes in a knock of 102 off just 41 deliveries. As many as 84 of those runs came in boundaries and sixes off just 17 deliveries, and there were just eight dot deliveries that he

faced.

Familiar face

As Head was putting up an electric show, there was a familiar feeling attached to it. Eight years ago, Head was in the RCB dugout, even getting a look-in ahead of Chris Gayle.

But after a not-so impressive outing in 2017, he was released. It took him seven years to return to the IPL fold, but showed why he's among the most fearsome openers going around. Head’s biggest strength lies in ensuring his weakness (minimal footwork) isn’t exploited.

With terrific hand-eye coordination and the range to hit all over the park, he can tear apart any attack. In conditions like what he encountered on Monday night, no line or length can actually trouble him.

His one glaring weakness is against spinners. But RCB took the field without any frontline spinners with Will Jacks' parttime off-spin and Mahipal Lomror’s leftarm spin being the options.

A pace attack of Reece Topley, Yash Dayal, Lockie Ferguson and Vijaykumar Vyshak was not going to bother him on the night, unless they used variations and kept him guessing. But none of that happened and Head kept picking up his pace en route to his maiden IPL century.

Mismatch

From the moment Faf du Plessis won the toss and put Hyderabad in to bat, it appeared a lost battle. For a team that has the worst numbers in the Powerplay and the second worst at the dath, to put a side in with the kind of batting firepower that SRH had was quite baffling. Especially given the pressure they are under with just one win so far, having runs on board could have helped their cause. But it is hard to understand how RCB go about it.

Apart from taking the field with just four frontline bowlers, they continue to pay the price for not having a genuine wickettaking spinner in their ranks. That their attack had a collective failure wasn’t a coincidence.

There were only three overs in which RCB conceded single-digit runs and all those came in the Powerplay. The four runs given by Jacks in the third over was the least they conceded and the only one not to see a boundary being scored off. In all, they had four overs that went for 20 or more.

Four overs that went for 15 to 19 runs as all their bowlers had an economy rate of 10 or over. Topley, Dayal, Ferguson and Vyshak conceded 50-plus runs - the first instance of four bowlers conceding that many runs in the IPL.

For a team that knows well in advance the negatives of playing at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium, that RCB are still naive when it comes to figuring out what attack suits their home conditions remains the biggest unsolved puzzle in the IPL.

Party continues

If watching Head hit them all over the park wasn’t enough, Hyderabad showed their ruthless side, by promoting Heinrich Klaasen to No.3, ahead of Aiden Markram in the ninth over.

With Head going strong, the South African took a bit of time – by his standards – as he hit his first six only off the eighth ball he faced. That Head had provided him not just a platform but had placed him on an elevator meant Klaasen came prepared to fly. And more than Head’s eight sixes, it was the seven from Klaasen’s bat that punctured Bengaluru. Another player, who was considered surplus to RCB’S requirements, Klaasen's 31-ball stay brought 67 runs, as he showed what RCB were missing.

Those trademark, power-packed shots in front of the wicket came to the fore as he played another selfless gem before Abdul Samad and Markram provided the finishing touches to a record IPL total.

Brief scores: Sunrisers Hyderabad 287/3 in 20 overs (Travis Head 102, Heinrich Klaasen 67, Abdul Samad 37 not out; Lockie Ferguson 2/52) beat Royal Challengers Bengaluru 262/7 in 20 overs (Dinesh Karthik 83, Faf du Plessis 62, Virat Kohli 42; Pat Cumnmins 3/43, Mayank Markande 2/46) by 25 runs