Rajasthan Royals beat Sunrisers Hyderabad. (Source: PTI)How to keep Warner on a leash
One thing is clear, all world cup teams are going to target David Warner with seamers bowling at his leg stump line with the occasional bouncer at the body. The IPL format has allowed him some free room as the top seamers can’t bowl too many overs and he has made up brilliantly it has to be said with his grit and skill. That leg stump line has cramped him for room; he manages to just nurdle and turn it around and make up with some hard running between the wickets. Plus he has found a way to side-shuffle to hit to the off side but it’s not going to be that easy with fast bowlers working him through long spells in ODIs.
For a few games now, that line has been the go-to strategy against him and Rajasthan Royals too did the same with Oshane Thomas and Varun Aaron. Warner played himself in quietly and tried to amp up his run rate against other bowlers.
Then came the 13th over that completely changed the game around. Thomas started to cramp up Warner with that aforesaid line and slipped in the quick short one. Warner side-stepped to the leg side but was beaten by the bounce and the pace. He managed to sort of swat it high towards wide mid-off region and should have still survived if not for Steve Smith.
Until then, Smith had been scowling, his hands on hip, and muttering under his breath as Rajasthan’s fielding had been pretty poor – misfields, dropped catches, and overthrows. He started sprinting first sideways to his right and then back as the ball kept going away from him and he threw in a full-stretched lunge-dive to pouch an incredible catch.
Runs came in a trickle and in the 15th over, Manish Pandey tried to step to the leg side and late cut a googly from Shreyas Gopal. Mistake. He actually edged that but Sanju Samson, the wicketkeeper, didn’t notice it but was alert enough to whip the bails off with his left-hand and stump Pandey, who was out of balance and had his back leg in the air.
Hyderabad’s middle order disintegrate
That was that. The middle-order muddle yet again hit Hyderabad. For the third time this season, they have lost 7 wickets in the second half of the game. A stunningly sorry stat that says much about the confusion in the middle.
Vijay Shankar has dawdled along for a few overs, picking singles, and then he tries a big hit almost in desperation and holes out. It’s been a pattern for him in a couple of games now and that says he isn’t sure about his role out there. The Indian fans don’t need to fret about the world cup too much though as his current approach wouldn’t hurt in ODIs. He can play himself with singles and manoeuvre the field for longer periods before he pulls out the big shots. In the shorter T20 format, by the time he looks up after playing himself in, he feels the pressure of scoring quickly and choses desperate options to hit out.
On a pitch that had begun to slow up, the batsmen kept choosing wrong options; they tried to heave the slow cutters of Jaydev Unadkat or try to smash Thomas’s short ones and lost wickets in a clutch.
Hyderabad weren’t smart with the ball as well. It was clear that Livingstone likes to free his arms to the leg side, a bit like Stuart Binny in his composition of shots, in the way he swings that bat, but they kept bowling on a length and on the middle and leg line. He kept smashing them and with Ajinkya Rahane in full flow, Rajasthan flowed along towards their fourth win in their last six games.
Though both fell in quick succession, Sanju Samson and Steve Smith ensured they cruised home. It was perfect situation for Smith, who just had to manoeuvre the field and he kept the onside deflections rolling in until he was surprised by a bouncer from Khaleel Ahmed.
But by then the damage was done. As ever, Samson looked good with his flicks and pulls but yet again he occasionally threatened to self-destruct with a tame shot or two but Rashid Khan put him down once and he settled down to see it through. Only interest left after Smith’s fall was whether Ashton Turner would fall for his fourth successive golden duck but luckily, for him, he got away with an inside-edged single. He smiled, so did the bowler Bhuvneshwar Kumar and there was laughter all around at the dugout.
Brief scores: Sunrisers Hyderabad 160/8 (Pandey 61 off 36b, 9×4, Warner 37 off 32b; Unadkat 2/26, Thomas 2/28, Gopal 2/30, Aaron 2/36) lost to Rajasthan Royals 161/3 in 19.1 overs (Samson 48 off 32b, 4×4, 1×6, Livingstone 44 off 26b, 4×4, 3×6) by
7 wickets
