SunRisers Hyderabad lost IPL 2020 match to Rajasthan Royals by five wickets after Royals successfully chased 159 with Riyan Parag and Rahul Tewatia scoring unbeaten 42 and 45 respectively in an unbeaten partnership of 85 runs for the sixth wicket.
For SunRisers Hyderabad, opener skipper David Warner scored 48, and Manish Pandey scored 54. Jofra Archer, Jaydev Unadkat and Kartik Tyagi picked one wicket each.
SunRisers Hyderabad Look Better With Openers David Warner And Jonny Bairstow Firing-Pragyan Ojha
Ben Stokes played in his first match for Rajasthan after arriving late from New Zealand. Jonny Bairstow who missed out on a 100 in the last match by a whisker, found the going tough scoring 16 before being dismissed by Kartik Tyagi.
“This will be an interesting game [SRH vs RR]. For me the SRH are there in the top 4 teams this IPL. They have a good team. They also now look better after their openers David Warner and Jonny Bairstow have fired. The way these two are batting, that’s where the key lies for the SRH in IPL 2020,” Pragyan Ojha told Sports Today before the game.
Manish Pandey and David Warner, however, took them to a respectable total but couldn’t score runs at will with Jofra Archer, Shreyas Gopal and Jaydev Unadkat conceding less than eight runs per over. None of RR’s bowlers conceded more than 10 runs per over.
“For them, whatever has happened in the past, has happened. They have had some unfortunate injuries and have missed out on their players [Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Mitchell Marsh], but they have come back strong and have played good cricket,” Ojha said.
It was a close match, and SRH were in a comfortable position as RR were reduced to 78/5 in the 12th over. They needed as much as 81 runs more in only eight overs which was a herculean task to achieve by any standard. Rashid Khan again was economical with 2/25, and K Khaleel Ahmed was the other wicket-taker with 2/37.
SunRisers Hyderabad Loses To Rajasthan Royals After The Latter’s Rampage
But from the 16th over, Riyan Parag and Rahul Tewatia went on a rampage scoring more than 11 runs per over. The last five overs saw as much as 69 runs. Riyan Parag scored 42 off 26 balls while Rahul Tewatia scored 45 off 28 balls. Both remained unbeaten as RR won by five wickets and the unbroken partnership of 85 was the second-highest in successful run chases.
With the win by RR who have won three and lost four, they are placed 6th and SRH are placed 5th with the similar win-loss record but are ahead on net run rate. Both teams have six points each.
In the previous match, though against bottom-placed KXIP, Jonny Bairstow scored 97 and David Warner scored 52 as the duo put on 160 run partnership for the opening wicket. KXIP lost by 69 runs.