IPL: Sanju Samson 82 in vain as Roy’s 60 helps SRH gun down 165 vs RR to end losing streak
Sunrisers Hyderabad finally registered their second win of the season on Monday, beating the Rajasthan Royals by 8 goals in match 40 of the 2021 Indian Premier League (IPL) in Dubai.
Chasing 165 for victory, SRH crossed the finish line in 18.3 overs thanks to the outstanding knocks played by Jason Roy and Kane Williamson.
Jason Roy and Wriddhiman Saha gave the Sunrisers a flying start, adding 57 runs in 5 overs before the wicketkeeper got out to Mahipal Lomror’s first delivery of the match for 18.
But Roy, who played in place of the out-of-form David Warner in this match, continued to attack the RR bowlers and brought up his second IPL fifty in his debut innings for SRH. He added another 57 runs with captain Kane Williamson for the second wicket to bring the equation under SRH’s control.
The Royals then fought back through Chetan Sakariya (1 for 16) and Mustafizur Rahman (1 for 14) as the sent back Roy (60) and Priyam Garg (0), respectively, in quick succession. But Williamson (51 not out) and young Abhishek Sharma (21 not out) made sure there were no other hiccups and took the team to victory with their unbeaten 48-run partnership for the fourth wicket.
Earlier, Sanju Samson played yet another captain’s knock to help the Royals reach 164 for 5 in 20 overs after electing to bat first.
Samson top-scored with 82 while opener Yashasvi Jaiswal and Mahipal Lomror contributed with 36 and 29 not out respectively. Samson went past 3000 IPL runs and took over the Orange Cap from Shikhar Dhawan with 433 runs from 10 games.
Siddharth Kaul picked a couple of wickets in the final over to pull things back for SRH while Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Sandeep Sharma and Rashid Khan bagged one each.
The result hurt RR’s campaign even though they are still 6th on the table and but need to win all their remaining games to have a chance of qualifying for the play-offs. They will take on Virat Kohli’s Royal Challengers Bangalore in Match 43 at the same venue on September 29.
SRH on the other hand, are already out of contention with just 4 points from 10 games and can only play party-poopers for other teams, just like they did tonight. The 2016 champions will next face MS Dhoni’s Chennai Super Kings in Match 44 at Sharjah on September 30.
