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The plan Sunrisers Hyderabad team-mates Hanuma Vihari and Ashish Reddy
discussed before Vinay Kumar started the final over of their match
against Royal Challengers Bangalore was to play every ball and not
panic. Sunrisers needed seven to register their second win in as many
matches. "If we did not waste a single ball then seven runs were
possible in the final over. But Ashish got out on the first ball,"
Vihari said a day after Sunrisers won a thriller in the Super Over.
When Dale Steyn walked in, the message was clear. "We discussed hitting
bat on ball and running hard between the wickets and looking to take the
match to the last ball," Vihari said. He watched Steyn take two runs
from the second delivery of the over and then play and miss the third.
"I decided I'd finish the match if and when I get the strike," Vihari
said. He finally took strike with the Sunrisers needing four runs off
the final two balls, which was reduced to two off the final delivery
after he dug out a "good yorker" to get a double.
For the final ball, Vihari stood deep in the crease. As soon as Vinay
delivered the ball, Steyn charged blindly forward. But Vinay
second-guessed his opponent with a smart slower delivery. "I expected a
yorker, but he bowled a slower ball. I tried to hit it hard for two runs
but could not connect." Vihari ran a bye and could not believe it was a
tie.
It was a bittersweet moment for Vihari and Sunrisers. Having restricted
Royal Challengers to a modest 130, the hosts faltered frequently in the
chase. And when the Lankan pair of Kumar Sangakkara and Thisara Perera
departed in quick succession, the onus was on Vihari. Despite his age -
19 - Vihari decided to play the guiding hand to his partner Reddy, an
aggressive player. Their 23-run partnership for the seventh wicket
snatched the momentum in Sunrisers' favour. "A player like Ashish can
strike at any given point. So I was telling him to pick the right ball
and if it was not in his range to focus on taking singles and keep the
dot balls count low," Vihari says.
It's this sensible streak that prompted the team management to promote
Vihari to No. 3. Sangakkara, Sunrisers' captain, had decided to drop
himself to No. 5 to counter the middle overs from the Muralis - Muttiah
Muralitharan and Murali Kartik. "When early wickets fell, Tom [Moody]
told me I would bat at No. 4. My plan was to take it as close as
possible to the target," Vihari said.
Despite his batting prowess, Vihari's most telling impact had come with
the ball - in fact his very first ball of the match. Sangakkara had
already told him that he would be bowling with the new ball against
Chris Gayle since the Jamaican had got out a few times in the past to
off spinners. Being the only off-break bowler in the team on Sunday,
Vihari executed the plan nicely: pitching on the off he got a little
bounce that surprised Gayle, who went for the cut and was caught behind.
"I have kept the picture of the Gayle wicket," Vihari says of his best
souvenir.
A wristy player, Vihari is a good striker of the ball and plays shots on
both sides of the wicket. His best innings to date has been against
Mumbai in the Ranji Trophy this season when he scored a career-best 191
runs in a drawn match.
John Manoj, Vihari's coach at St. John's Cricket Academy in Hyderabad,
noticed that the youngster could hit the ball "very hard" when he picked
him as a nine-year-old. Manoj's best student has been VVS Laxman, who
is the mentor at Sunrisers now. Manoj had helped Vihari join the St.
Andrew School in Bowenpally in Secunderabad and observed a keen student
in Vihari. "I observed him playing confidently against the ball on the
rise against fast bowlers from a tender age," Manoj said. Last year
Laxman was impressed by Vihari's strokeplay on wet practice pitches and
enquired more about the youngster.
At the beginning of the IPL, Laxman told Vihari to "express himself and
play his natural game" without getting distracted at all about playing
such a big tournament. The significance of those words has not been lost
on Vihari.
Vihari dedicated his Man-of-the-Match award to his mother, who was at
the ground with his sister, and his late father, who'd died in 2005. At
the time, the 11-year-old Vihari was playing in a school tournament. His
mother asked him to play cricket since his father always wanted him to
play cricket. "It was two days after his death but my mother asked me to
go ahead and I decided to respect her word," Vihari says.
Nagraj Gollapudi is an assistant editor at ESPNcricinfo
Feeds: Nagraj Gollapudi
© ESPN EMEA Ltd.
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