Hyderabad: Ishan Kishan’s blitzkrieg trumped the heroic efforts from Sanju Samson and Dhruv Jurel as Sunrisers Hyderabad buried Rajasthan Royals under a deluge of runs to start its IPL 2025 campaign in style with a 44-run win here on Sunday.
After Travis Head teed off with a 31-ball-67 adding 94 for the opening stand with Abhishek Sharma, Kishan (106 not out off 47 balls) smashed a 45-ball-100 in his first appearance for the new franchise as Sunrisers Hyderabad scored 286 for 6, their second highest total in the history of IPL.
But Royals were never in hunt as they finally managed 242 for 6 in their 20 overs and their effort will certainly help their net run-rate.
At a sultry Hyderabad, Royals’ inexperienced skipper Riyan Parag committed a harakiri by opting to bowl on the flattest deck on offer in IPL and this decision could come back to haunt them at the business end of the tournament.
In a tale of three flamboyant keeper-batters, although two of them didn’t keep on the day, Samson (66 off 37 balls) and Jurel (70 off 35 balls) did make full use of a belter by at least scaring the SRH fans during a stand of 111 in just 9.5 overs.
While Sunrisers were always favourites to win the run-fest, the match decisively turned in two overs –11th bowled by Adam Zampa (1/48 in 4 overs) and 12th sent down by skipper Pat Cummins (0/60 in 4 overs) — which yielded only seven runs cumulatively.
Pacer Harshal Patel (2/34 in 4 overs) understated brilliance at the back-end also needs an honourable mention.
The difference became the number of dot balls consumed in the end.
While Royals managed only 25 dot balls during SRH innings, Cummins and his men were able to bowl 15 more.
The dot balls accumulated during the two overs did increase the pressure. Even though Jurel got three sixes off Simrajeet Singh (2/46 in 3 overs) in the 13th over, the pressure of the asking rate suddenly increased.
But wily Harshal, always a go-to bowler when captains need a change of pace, got Samson and within another couple of deliveries Jurel was gone too while trying to slog Zampa and the contest effectively ended.
Shimron Hetmyer (42 off 23 balls) and Shubham Dubey (34 not out off 11 balls) also fought manfully but the target was just way too much.
The result was inevitable with Head taking the Royals attack to cleaners and then Kishan slaying their bowlers to beef up the SRH total.
Head and Kishan, who made his maiden IPL hundred, hit 20 fours and nine sixes between them.
SRH picked up from where they left the last season and could have bettered their own and IPL’s best-ever total (287/3) but two wickets fell in the final over.
Jofra Archer, who went for 76 wicket-less runs in four overs, recorded the most expensive individual bowling figures in the history of the tournament.
Such was the dominance of Head during the front 10 and Kishan at the back-10 that Abhishek Sharma (24 off 11 balls) and fit-again Nitish Reddy’s (30 off 15 balls) efforts were completely overshadowed.
Heinrich Klaasen (34 off 14 balls) got a tailor-made situation to clobber the clueless Royals bowlers towards the end.
Kishan, one of the core players in Mumbai Indians in the past few years, had a rough 2024 as he lost his central contract for ignoring domestic cricket for the cash-rich league and MI also didn’t retain him.
The diminutive Patna man came back with a renewed vigour and packed a mean punch in his ‘debut game’ for the new franchise.
Playing seven games on such a shirtfront, Kishan will make a serious case for himself to make a comeback to the national side even though the T20 team bears a settled look.
The pitch had nothing in it for the bowlers and with little margin of error, the balls kept sailing into the stands with monotonic regularity.
Archer, Royals’ most experienced bowler, looked a bit undercooked as he was sent soaring into the orbit by Head, who smashed 23 off his first over.
The Barbados-born Englishman didn’t recover after that.
If Head swivelled him off his hips for a pick-up pull-shot, Kishan muscled him over extra cover and used his pace to scoop him over keeper for the same result.
If Archer’s pace became his bane, Fazalhaq Farooqi (0/49 in 3 overs) and Sandeep Sharma’s (1/51 in 4 overs) lack of it was an even bigger issue.
Mystery spinner Maheesh Theekshana (2/52 in 4 overs) found out that not every ground is Chepauk and he lost his length on multiple occasions.
Only Tushar Deshpande (3/44 in 4 overs) returned with some kind of a respectable stat at the end of the innings.
