Trent Boult, David Warner give SRH first win in IPL 8

Their franchise is only three seasons old, but they have already had five captains. Last season Shikhar Dhawan lead them initially but was replaced by Darren Sammy towards the latter half of the tournament when his own form started to fade away. For the 2015 edition of the IPL, Sammy had made the move to Bangalore and it was David Warner’s time to step up and lead. While it’s only been two games so far, the Australian unlike Dhawan seems least perturbed by the extra responsibility. (Full Coverage| Fixtures|Points Table)

Scorecard: RCB vs SRH

In his first game, against Chennai, Warner made 53. But while that knock came in a losing cause, his 26-ball-57 on Monday made a modest 167 run target seem smaller still. Warner set the tone from the very first ball of the chase. Sean Abbott was searching for the yorker but while the delivery swung in late, it was too full and Warner slapped it past the covers for a boundary. When Harshal Patel gave it a go the next over, he didn’t make it any tougher for the Australian. Warner clipped his first delivery to the square leg fence while the next one was slammed back at the bowler for another boundary. Patel managed a dot but the next was punched through the covers for another boundary. The final delivery was short of length and was duly deposited over the midwicket fence. At 36/0 after two overs, the crunching sound that was heard at the moment of contact was merely the sound of a good start.

In contrast to Warner, Dhawan seemed to be batting a gear or two lower. By the time the current captain had been dismissed for 57 with the score at 82, Dhawan was on 24 off 20 balls. But with the required runrate a relatively modest 7 per over at that point, there wasn’t any reason to take undue risks. Even when Kane Williamson was stumped off Yuzvendra Chahal just two overs after Warner’s dismissal, Dhawan seemed content to take the singles and keep the score moving. Overs 8 to 14 fetched 41 runs with Dhawan not picking a single boundary, but he had ensured that there would be no further jitters. Once within sight of the win, Dhawan would get going once again with a pull over square leg off Abu Nechim in the 15th over, before reaching his fifty with a six off the same bowler in the penultimate over.

Quick work

Post match interviews are usually a bundle of cliches, and so it wasn’t very surprising that when Virat Kohli was asked what his bowlers did wrong, he said, “We didn’t bowl in the right areas.” The thing is, Kohli was spot on in his assessment of side’s performance. Defending a total that was some twenty runs short of what would have been defendable, Kohli would have wanted his bowlers to at least keep things tight at the start. Ominously for him, Abbott started with a full toss that was put away for four. Abbott would later bowl one too straight that was driven easily to the midwicket fence. Sixteen came of the over. The next bowled by Patel was worse. Boundaries were hit off a ball on the pads, a half volley outside off and a full toss in the same area. Varun Aaron was the third straight bowler to bowl a full toss in his first over and was duly driven for four.

Nechim managed to break the streak, but in his next over bowled one short and not particularly quick which was dispatched for six. When the leggie Chahal managed to take a couple of wickets while bowling a tight spell, a couple of the bowlers (Aaron and Abbott) managed to squeeze a couple of cheap overs in, but overall the pacers’ figures made for worrisome reading. In the previous game, only Nechim had gone at less than 9 an over, but there would be no hiding this time around. Each one of their four frontline pacers went at over ten. Bangalore have a batting unit packed with power hitters, but in light of recent performances they will be hoping for Adam Milne to return from injury and Mitchell Starc to get back from Australia

Merchants of swing

It takes a bit of bravery to conciously keep Dale Steyn out of a side. Hyderabad have shown some bravado for two games in a row now, chosing to stick with Trent Boult instead. Hyderabad did make a couple of other changes, however. One of those was to replace Ishant Sharma with Praveen Kumar. One look at their three front line pacers — Bhuvneshwar Kumar is the other— and it is clear, Hyderabad were taking a gamble. If there isn’t any swing on offer, two of the three don’t have the pace to worry the batsmen.

Luckily Bangalore has been having a bit of rain and the overcast conditions gave the trio plenty of help. Boult produced a couple of booming inswingers early on, one of which had Kohli plumb in the third over but the umpire deigned to give that dismissal. Bangalore weren’t allowed to get off to a flyer, and Praveen Kumar, back from the wilderness, forced a false stroke from Chris Gayle in his first over — the sixth of the innings. While Praveen went for a few in his next three overs, his swing compatriots still had a role to play. Fourteen runs from Praveens final over meant that Bangalore were 148/5 in the penultimate over of their innings. But with AB Devilliers on a 26-ball 42 at that point, a score in the high 170s or higher was a distinct possibility. Boult however put paid to those plans. He had the South African swinging at a delivery away from his body and skewing a catch to sweeper cover.

As it happened…