In a nail-biting Indian Premier League match that took place on Sunday, Sunrisers Hyderabad beat Rajasthan Royals by four wickets thanks to a six hit by Abdul Samad off the final ball of the innings.
Samad was dropped by Hyderabad’s fast bowler Sandeep Sharma on the first delivery of the last over, when Hyderabad needed 17 runs off of that over. Samad was caught off the sixth delivery, but it turned out to be a no ball, which unexpectedly cut short Rajasthan’s celebrations of their triumph. Samad was caught off the sixth delivery.
Samad hammered a straight six in his seven-ball 17 to give Hyderabad the victory and send the game into a super over. At that point, Hyderabad needed four runs to win on the final ball, and three to push the game into extra overs. When Hyderabad’s score reached 174-5, New Zealand’s Glenn Phillips turned the game around with a seven-ball 25 that breathed new life into the chase. This brought Hyderabad closer to their goal.
Before being caught by Shimron Hetmyer off the fifth delivery of the last over, Phillips gave the left-arm wrist spinner Kuldeep Yadav a thrashing, hitting three sixes and a four with his bat. “That was the ball I should have hit the hardest out of all of them. Phillips expressed his displeasure after being chosen man of the match, saying, “I was disappointed the actual slot ball did not go over the fence.”
“I felt like I left a lot on the field with 17 needed off the final over, but then Samad did what he did, and obviously we got that little bit of luck with the no ball,” the batter said.
While England’s Joe Root was playing his first game of the season for Rajasthan, the Hyderabad squad substituted Phillips for the under-performing big signing Harry Brook. Phillips took Brook’s spot in the lineup.
At the same time when the team was making its greatest ever run chase, crucial innings came from Abhishek Sharma (55), Rahul Tripathi (47), and Heinrich Klaasen (26). These knocks were instrumental in the triumph. The bowling stats of 4-29 that Yuzvendra Chahal posted were for naught.
After a spectacular second-wicket partnership of 138 between Jos Buttler, who hammered 95 off of 59 deliveries, and skipper Sanju Samson, who struck 66 off of 38 balls, Rajasthan recorded 214-2. Jos Buttler scored 95 runs off of 59 deliveries.
Buttler got off to a sluggish start, scoring his first 20 runs at a rate of one run per ball. However, he picked up the pace to get his fifty. The seam bowler Bhuvneshwar Kumar was able to get Buttler out lbw and prevent him from scoring a century. Samson completed the game by pitching a 17-run over, but it was ultimately not enough to win the game.
Hardik Pandya triumphed against his older brother Krunal in the opening match of the day, helping the holders, the Gujarat Titans, to a victory over the Lucknow Super Giants by a score of 56 runs.
Krunal, captain of the Lucknow side, won the toss and decided to field in the world’s largest cricket stadium in Ahmedabad during the first ever match in the Indian Premier League to be played between two teams led by brothers.
At the beginning, the brothers laughed and hugged each other, but things quickly became serious after Gujarat’s Wriddhiman Saha (81) and Shubman Gill (94 not out), who combined for a destructive opening partnership of 142 runs that drove Gujarat to their best ever IPL total of 227-2.
Although Lucknow made a valiant effort to respond, with Kyle Mayers (48) and Quinton de Kock (70) leading the way, they were only able to score 171-7, which allowed Gujarat to maintain their position as the best team in the 10-team standings.