Hyderabad rout Rajasthan, move to 5th spot, blow IPL play-offs’ race wide open

Mohammad Abdullah, Staff Reporter

Manish Pandey smacked a blitzkrieg unbeaten 47-ball 83 after Jason Holder took three wickets as Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) routed Rajasthan Royals by eight wickets in their IPL match on Thursday.

After restricting Rajasthan to 154/6, Hyderabad knocked down the winning runs for the loss of just two wickets with 11 balls to spare.

With the victory, Hyderabad blew the play-offs’ race wide open and moved to the fifth spot in the standings behind Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), who have ten points from 10 games.

Chasing, Hyderabad got off to a stuttering start, losing both David Warner and Jos Buttler with just 16 runs on the board. Yet another defeat was staring in the eye before Pandey and Vijay Shankar knuckled down to get the act together.

Both played sensibly and kept the scoreboard moving with a dab here and din there, hitting occasional boundaries. After getting his eyes in, Pandey changed his gears and began to plunder runs off Rajasthan bowlers. He brought up his fifty with a single off 28 deliveries. Shankar was more patient and kept his cool. The duo kept the Rajasthan’s bowlers at bay and took the score past 100 in the 11th over.

Shankar also flexed his muscles toward the end of the innings and raced to his maiden fifty of the season with a boundary off Kartik Tyagi, taking his team over the line. Both the batsmen remained unbeaten, sharing an unbroken stand of 140 runs for the third wicket. Pandey’s innings was studded with eight sixes and four boundaries while Shankar hit six fours. Earlier, Rajasthan got off to a flying start as both the openers Robin Uthappa and Stokes added 30 runs in just three overs for the first wicket.

Holder got rid of Uthappa with an accurate throw, which found the left-handed batsman short of his crease. Sanju Samson came out in the middle and joined Stokes. The duo played watchfully and added 56 runs for the second wicket to take the score to 86-2 in 11.4 overs. They consumed too many deliveries in the sedated partnership as they took 49 balls to accumulate those 50 runs despite having nine batsmen waiting in the dugout.

Holder rattled the stumps of Samson to break the dangerous looking partnership. Three balls later, wily spinner Rashid Khan also sprang into action and uprooted the timbers of Stokes to make it 86-3.

With the two new batsmen on the crease, Hyderabad had a chance to mount pressure on Rajasthan and stop the flow of runs.

Holder ripped through the middle order. Steve Smith and Riyan Parag chipped in with useful contributions before Holder got rid of both the batsmen in quick succession to complete his three-wicket haul.