Sunrisers Hyderabad 81 for 4 (Dhawan 22) beat Delhi Daredevils 80 (Sammy 2-10, Perera 2-11) by six wickets
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A couple of years ago, the Hyderabad Cricket Association had performed several pujas
at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium in Uppal seeking divine
intervention to change the fortunes of the home side which seemed to
invariably lose at the venue. Whether it was India, the local Ranji side
or the now-defunct Deccan Chargers, the Hyderabad crowd turned up only
to see their side defeated.
Whether it is due to the pujas or not, the home side's fortunes
have certainly changed at the Uppal stadium. India won two Tests there
this season, and the new franchise Sunrisers Hyderabad have now won five
in five after routing Delhi Daredevils with 37 balls remaining.
The bedrock of Sunrisers' surprisingly successful season so far has been
the bowling. Dale Steyn has bowled with frightening pace, Amit Mishra
and Karan Sharma have used their googlies to flummox the batsmen,
Thisara Perera has had plenty of success with both bat and ball and
Ishant Sharma, usually so profligate in the limited-overs format, has
been effective with the new ball. All of that came together perfectly as
they hounded out Daredevils for 80, the lowest total of the season.
Daredevils' campaign had been on life support over the past week, with a
couple of victories just about keeping them alive in the competition.
Their chances are now dead and buried after their faltering batting
failed once again. There were only four fours and one six in the entire
innings, less than what AB de Villiers managed in a single over against Ashok Dinda earlier this week.
Their openers survived a couple of pacy, probing overs from Steyn at the
start before Asad Rauf gave a rough lbw decision to Mahela Jayawardene.
Virender Sehwag followed soon after as he missed an indipper from
Darren Sammy and lost his offstump. That left only David Warner among
the big names, and though he was put down on 6, he couldn't make it to
double-digits as he misread a Mishra googly and was stumped by yards.
The Sunrisers quicks had a plan on a track that was slow and had some
variable bounce - they didn't bowl anything full, giving nothing that
could be driven easily. The surface also offered turn for the spinners,
which both Mishra and Karan exploited.
Daredevils had lengthened their batting with the inclusion of two
overseas allrounders, Johan Botha and Jeevan Mendis, but it was to
little avail. Mendis holed out to long-on, Botha top-edged to the
keeper, and Irfan Pathan dragged on a Steyn delivery to the stumps.
Daredevils went from 70 for 5 to 80 all out.
Sunrisers major weakness is their frail batting, and the pitch was not a
batting beauty but the target was too small for Daredevils' bowlers to
stand a real chance of defending it. Shikhar Dhawan made it seem like a
flat track early on with some sumptuous shots, and though there were a
few hiccups, Sunrisers maintained their 100% home record without too
much trouble.
Siddarth Ravindran is a senior sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo
Feeds: Siddarth Ravindran
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