Rajasthan Royals on Tuesday defeated Sunrisers Hyderabad by 61 runs in their opening IPL match of the competition’s 15th edition.
Batting first, Rajasthan Royals made 210-6 in 20 overs. In reply, Sunrisers Hyderabad could only put up 149-7 in their quota of 20 overs. Aiden Markram was the top scorer for his side as the South African batsman remained unbeaten at 57. Washington Sundar also made a quickfire 17-ball 40 runs but the rest of the SRH batsmen failed to shine with the bat.
Sunrisers Hyderabad were reduced to 37-5 in 10.2 overs but Markram, Romario Shepherd (24) and Sundar helped their team put up a somewhat respectable total in the end.
Earlier, Sanju Samson played a captain’s knock of 55 to guide his team to amass 210-6. He took just 27 runs to score that many runs. Also joining the party were Devdutt Padikkal (41) Jos Buttler (35) and Shimron Hetmyer (32).
Sunrisers Hyderabad may have lost the match, but their young fast bowler Umran Malik stole the limelight for bowling the fastest delivery of the match. Malik, who picked up two wickets, bowled with a speed of 150 km/h.
Reacting to his side’s first victory, Sanju Samson said after the match, “I think it was a different wicket than what we thought. The wicket was helping the fast bowlers if you hit the typical Test match lengths. Happy to contribute to the team’s victory. Leaders like Sangakkara help me a lot. A lot of cricketing brains have gone in to pick the right side. This season we have come in with great dreams. Lot of good sides and we will take one game at a time.”
His SRH counterpart Kane Williamson said, “We started beautifully with the ball, we had our opportunities. In all the games so far, there has been some swing and assistance with the new ball. You want to make some inroads, we looked very likely but unfortunately some fine margins in this game didn’t go our way. It was a very good surface and Rajasthan played outstandingly well. For us, there are still a number of things to touch on and improve on as a side. You got to keep your chin up and move on to the next one. Today wasn’t our day.”
Samson was declared Player Of The Match for his impressive batting.
