Devdutt Padikkal was handed a debut, and he didn’t disappoint. The youngster timed the ball perfectly throughout his 56-run knock. Mitchell Marsh got injured early on in the match, which hampered the Sunrisers team in batting and bowling. After a couple of quick wickets, Kohli and de Villiers were batting together.
Kohli tried to change gears after settling in but mistimed the ball and was caught out. His partner in crime, on the hand, hit a magnificent half-century, which took RCB to a decent total of 162 runs.
David Warner and Jonny Bairstow came out to bat for the Orange Army. David Warner was extremely unlucky during his run out as the ball deflected off the bowler’s hand onto the stumps. Jonny Bairstow was the star of Hyderabad’s innings. The English wicket-keeper batsman was looking unstoppable, and with Manish Pandey, he had found an able partner as well.
RCB still had one trick up their sleeve, and that was Yuzvendra Chahal. The leg spinner got the better of both Pandey and Bairstow, before bowling a googly to take Vijay Shankar’s wicket. Sunrisers were 121-2 at one point but collapsed like a house of cards after Bairstow’s wicket. They had another unfortunate run-out towards the end of the match and were finally bowled out at 153.
Here are 3 things we learned from this match:
SRH’s middle-order woes continue:
In David Warner and Jonny Bairstow, Sunrisers Hyderabad has an opening pair like no other. If needed, they can also call upon Kane Williamson, and Manish Pandey is set to make the 1 down position his own after some solid performances last season. But, their middle order and lower middle order is bereft of excellent and experienced batsmen.
Vijay Shankar has shown promise but is far too inconsistent. The rest of their batsmen are young Indians who, at times, find it hard to deliver under pressure. Hyderabad has a good bowling attack overall, but if their top order doesn’t score many runs, they will find it very hard to win games consistently because their middle order looks very thin.
Padikkal shines on his debut:
Parthiv Patel has been a solid player wherever he has gone and played for. He might not be the strongest player but can get his team off to a good start. There were talks of Indian youngster Devdutt Padikkal being ahead of him in the pecking order, and that’s precisely what happened. The Karnataka batsman was a part of RCB’s squad last season and couldn’t find himself in the playing XI.
