Trent Boult did the early damage by picking three wickets in Power-play, while Avesh Khan took a three-fer in the backend of the innings as Rajasthan Royals restricted a power-packed Sunrisers Hyderabad to 175/9 in Qualifier 2 of Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024 at the M.A. Chidambaram Stadium here on Friday.
On a fresh pitch, Avesh (3-27) and Boult (3-45) were spot-on with their execution to ensure SRH didn’t run way to amass a big total. RR’s seamers excelled by bowling cutters into the pitch, conceding only 25 runs in the last three overs, even as their spinners went wicketless in their combined eight overs.
For SRH, Rahul Tripathi’s 37 and Heinrich Klaasen’s fighting fifty took them to a decent total after being inserted into batting first by RR. Abhishek Sharma got going by pulling and driving Boult for exquisite boundaries before the pacer had the last laugh as the batter miscued a short ball to backward point. Tripathi was quick off the blocks by hitting seven boundaries, four of which came against Ravichandran Ashwin.
But Tripathi fell for 15-ball 37 when his attempt to ramp a rising slower short ball from Boult was caught by short third man. In the same over, Boult struck again as Aiden Markram threw his hands at a wide ball and the edge flew to the short third man’s hands.
Travis Head overcame a slow start by hitting four boundaries collectively off Avesh and Sandeep Sharma but was caught at short third man in an attempt to ramp a slower bouncer off the latter. Klassen tried to keep SRH innings afloat with his gigantic sixes off Chahal but didn’t get support from the other end.
Nitish Kumar Reddy reverse-swept to short third man off Avesh, who also rattled Abdul Samad’s off-stump. Klaasen continued his rearguard act by smacking Boult for a six down the ground, before reaching his fifty in 33 balls.
But Klaasen missed the very next ball he faced, as a yorker from Sandeep uprooted his leg-stump. Avesh’s impressive time in the match concluded with him having Shahbaz Ahmed heaving to long-on and inflicting the run-out of Jaydev Unadkat on the last ball of the innings.
Brief scores:
Sunrisers Hyderabad 175/9 in 20 overs (Heinrich Klaasen 50, Rahul Tripathi 37; Avesh Khan 3-27, Trent Boult 3-45) against Rajasthan Royals