Sunrisers Hyderabad smashed 78 runs in the Power-play with a 36-ball fifty by Aiden Markram to register a six-wicket win over Chennai Super Kings (CSK) to get their second successive home win at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium on Friday.
After SRH bowlers, especially the seamers, used the slowness of the pitch to their advantage by bowling slower balls to restrict CSK to 165/5, Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma came out swinging to decide the result of the match in the Power-play itself. Eventually, SRH completed the chase in 18.1 overs to give CSK their second successive defeat on the road.
Chasing 166, Head got an early life when he went for a flashy cut-off Deepak Chahar, but Moeen Ali dropped him for naught at first slip in the opening over. Four balls later, Head rubbed salt on CSK’s wounds by ramping a short ball for six.
Left-arm fast-bowler Mukesh Choudhary, playing in a competitive match for the first time since December 2022, was all over the place with his lengths, giving Abhishek the ideal chance to cart him for two fours and three sixes to score 27 runs in the second over.
Abhishek continued to time his shots by pulling and slapping Chahar for six and four respectively, before slicing uppishly to the backward point, falling for 37 off just 12 balls. Head and Markram hit six boundaries between themselves as SRH ended the power-play at 78/1 in six overs.
After a brief slow period, Markram broke free by launching Ravindra Jadeja over long-on for a six and hammered Maheesh Theekshana for four more. The 60-run stand off 42 balls for the second wicket came to an end when Theekshana had Head sweeping to a deep backward square leg, falling for 31 off 24 balls.
Though Markram reached his first fifty of the competition, Moeen trapped him lbw four balls later and both took out Shahbaz Ahmed for 18 in the same fashion. But it was too late for CSK to force a twist in the game as Nitish Kumar Reddy and Heinrich Klaasen got the remaining runs, with the former hitting the winning runs in style by lofting a six straight down the ground.
Brief scores:
Chennai Super Kings 165/5 in 20 overs (Shivam Dube 45, Ajinkya Rahane 35; Shahbaz Ahmed 1-11, Bhuvneshwar Kumar 1-28) lost to Sunrisers Hyderabad 166/4 in 18.1 overs (Aiden Markram 50, Abhishek Sharma 37; Moeen Ali 2-23, Maheesh Theekshana 1-27) by six wickets
