Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) have had quite the see-saw run so far in the 2023 Indian Premier League (IPL), with wins and defeats alike coming in pairs. The 2016 champions would start off with two consecutive defeats and would promptly bounce back with victories in as many games.
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Just when their fortunes this season appeared to be on the mend, the ‘Orange Army’ have fallen back to square one with defeats in each of their last two outings, the latest one coming at the hands of Chennai Super Kings at the Chepauk — a venue where they are yet to register a victory since making their debut in 2013.
One of they takeaways from the Sunrisers’ victories over Punjab Kings (PBKS) and Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) was their improved batting effort, with at least one member of the top three taking charge throughout the innings and skipper Aiden Markram too chipping in with valuable contributions.
And though they failed to chase down the 193-run target set by the Mumbai Indians (MI) at home on Tuesday, there still were valuable contributions coming in from Mayank Agarwal as well as from wicketkeeper-batter Heinrich Klaasen, whose 16-ball 36 gave Rohit Sharma and Co a real scare at one point.
On Friday however, the absence of an impact knock was glaring as none of the Sunrisers batters rose to the occasion and delivered when the going got tough in the middle overs. Quite similar to their batting performances in the defeats against Rajasthan Royals (RR) and Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) earlier in the tournament, where they were restricted to totals of 131 and 121 respectively.
For starters, the weight of expectations on Harry Brook’s shoulders have only increased since the Sunrisers opener silenced his naysayers with a sensational hundred in Kolkata last week. The Englishman, however, has given social media trolls enough fodder to have another go at him after consecutive failures, with Brook getting dismissed by Akash Singh after getting off to a promising start against the Super Kings.
Fellow opener Abhishek Sharma (34) and one-down batter Rahul Tripathi appeared to have the situation under control with a steady second-wicket partnership as the Sunrisers reached 71/1 close to the halfway stage when Ravindra Jadeja induced the former into an ambitious pull down the ground, resulting in him getting caught by Ajinkya Rahane at long on.
It was the beginning of Sunrisers’ gradual slide as Tripathi departed in Jadeja’s next over, perishing while attempting to slog-sweep the wily left-arm spinner. Skipper Markram, who has produced a couple of game-changing knocks so far this season, fell for a run-a-ball 12 after getting a faint nick with Chennai skipper MS Dhoni pulling off an excellent catch behind the stumps — and adding another record to his name — to give Maheesh Theekshana his only wicket of the evening.
Read | Dhoni admits he’s in ‘last phase of career’ after CSK’s win over SRH
That wasn’t all from Dhoni though as he would pull off a sharp stumping to remove Mayank Agarwal and give Jadeja his third wicket of the evening, which eventually landed him the Player of the Match award.
The final nail in the coffin however, was the manner in which the hard-hitting Klaasen struggled to get going after the flurry of wickets, collecting just one boundary during his 16-ball 17 with his strike rate staying below 100 for the most part. Hyderabad hadn’t even reached 120 in the 18th over when Klaasen was dismissed by Matheesha Pathirana in the 18th over.
The Sunrisers could have argued that batting at Chepauk, where the odd ball did stop and the spinners received a fair amount of help, isn’t exactly as easy as say at Chinnaswamy or Wankhede. And it would’ve been a fair point had they returned the favour to the Super Kings after being restricted to 134, and made life for the opposition batters as tough as possible.
Devon Conway, though, dispelled any notion of the Chennai wicket harbouring demons as the New Zealander wasted little time in taking the attack to the Hyderabad bowlers and carted them all over the park to bring up his third half-century on the trot as well as his fourth of the season.
Conway, who had smashed a 46-ball 83 against RCB in Bengaluru, produced an equally fluent 77 not out off 57 deliveries and built yet another solid opening partnership with Ruturaj Gaikwad that quickly snuffed out any hopes of a miraculous comeback from Hyderabad.
Though Chennai stuttered close to the finish line, with Ajinkya Rahane and Ambati Rayudu departing quickly after Gaikwad was run out at the non-striker’s end in a rather unlucky fashion, the opening stand as well as Conway’s presence ensured the home team got over the line with more than an over to spare in the end.
In Photos | Conway, spinners guide CSK to victory over SRH
“We certainly thought this wasn’t a 130 wicket, it was more around 160. Partnerships weren’t there, we couldn’t build momentum and credit to them for the way they bowled,” said a disappointed Markram after the game, admitting to the fact that Hyderabad made the Chepauk wicket appear more difficult than it actually was.
Though the defeat ensured they remained at the ninth spot on the points table, the Sunrisers will by no means be losing hope already as a month still remains in the group stage of this year’s IPL, giving the ‘Orange Army’ plenty of room to mount a comeback. And skipper Markram will be reminding them of the positives in recent outings when they take on the bottom-ranked Delhi Capitals in back-to-back encounters next week.
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