All eyes were on Umran Malik, a player for Sunrisers Hyderabad. All they could see was a blur. But still, the Gujarat Titans had the last laugh as they won by five wickets in their thrilling IPL match here on Wednesday night.
The young fast bowler was Kane Williamson’s last hope when he came into the attack in the eighth over. He did what was expected of him, taking five wickets with devastatingly quick deliveries to scythe through the Gujarat Titans’ top order and almost giving Sunrisers Hyderabad their sixth straight win in the lucrative lucrative lucrative Indian Premier League.
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Rahul Tewatia and Rashid Khan didn’t think that way. Rahul Tewatia scored 40 not out off 21 balls, and Rashid Khan hit 31 not out off 11 balls as GT needed 56 runs from the last 24 overs after Umran finished his four overs.
But the BCCI will have again paid close attention to the man from Jammu, who, in one of the best fast-bowling shows of all time, finished with 5/25, four of which were bowled.
Abhishek Sharma and Aiden Markram both made half-centuries for Sunrisers Hyderabad when they were asked to bat first. They made 195 for six.
Were the Titans trying to reach a high score? Wriddhiman Saha (68) hit many balls and put on 69 runs for the first wicket with Shubman Gill (22), who was more subdued.
After everyone else tried and failed, Umran got the first breakthrough when he hit Gill’s off stump in the eighth over of the eighth innings and in his first over.
Umran’s bounce did in Hardik Pandya, the captain of GT. He top-edged a ball to the third man. He had already hit two fours.
During one of his best IPL runs, Saha hit a single to long-on to reach 50 in 28 balls.
When Washington Sundar couldn’t make what would have been a fantastic catch at mid-on, the ball raced to the boundary. Saha also had some good luck, though.
Umran was the star of the show for a while before Tewatia and Rashid took over the game for GT with their excellent hitting skills.
After Abhishek hit 65 off 42 balls, he and Markram shared a third-wicket stand of 96 runs for the third time in the game.
In the next over, Shashank Singh (25 off 6 balls) hit Lockie Ferguson (0/52 in 4 overs) three times for sixes to score 25 runs.
When Mohammed Shami (3/39 in 4 overs) bowled an 11-run opening, the first ball was beautiful, and the successive five balls were leg-side wides, not once but twice. This helped the SRH get going.
Yash Dayal gave up 11 runs, thanks to two runs by Abhishek Sharma on the offside, as SRH reached 22 for no loss in two overs with two balls.
It was Kane Williamson’s first boundary, but that was all the SRH captain could do with the bat. Three balls later, India’s Shami hit a lovely seaming delivery to dismiss the Kiwi and give his team the game’s first victory.
Rahul Tripathi got a life even before he could start making runs. He hit Shami for six, four, and four before a review found he was caught in front of the wicket in the fifth over, which went for 14 runs.
Abhishek scored two fours in a row off Alzarri Joseph to help SRH score 53 runs in the six power play overs at the Wankhede Stadium. First, he lofted over the infield and then found a gap through a crowded off-side.
So, Abhishek and Markram did more than help SRH find a partnership at that point. They also kept the scoreboard moving at a good pace by hitting many boundary shots.
In contrast to Markram, Abhishek went after Rashid Khan. He hit the Afghanistan spin ace for his third six to reach his half-century in style, and he did it all in class.
