By Atreyo Mukhopadhyay
Six-over tale
This match was over in the first six overs. Rajasthan Royals 85/1. Sunrisers Hyderabad 30/2. That is where it was done and dusted. Chasing 204 to win and reduced to that, it was all over. It was not necessarily about what kind of bowling resources the teams used. It was about the kind of batting power they came up with. Rajasthan were about guns blazing. Go, go and go for it. Hit them out of the park, whatever the cost. Hyderabad were obviously not up to it when it came to responding to that. They were limp in their reply, and looked like a team lost.
This Buttler boy!
You have to give it to Jos Buttler. We all know that T20 cricket is about hitting. It’s about the team that is better on a given day. But there are not many Buttlers. When he is on song, it’s usually game up for the other side. He will not bully you. He will hit and hurt you where it hurts the most. This was one of his days. He did not target cow corner. He went for the off side and pulled those strokes off. It was clinical and maddening hitting. He hit them over cover and extra-cover. These are the tougher shots to play as far as the cricket manual goes. Buttler pulled them off without blinking. It was unreal, and too much for Hyderabad.
A strong batting unit
It was not only about Buttler. There have been many instances in the history of IPL that one man got off to a blistering start and the rest fizzled out. Rajsthan also had Yashavi Jaiswal and Sanju Samson. They kept on doing what the Englishman had started and made sure that the scoring rate seldom dipped under 10 an over. This was systematic mayhem and calculated hitting. It may sound easy, but it obviously was not. You go after bowlers at every stage of the innings, somewhat like the England template, which won them the 50 and 20-over World Cups. On this day, it came off.
Pitch not for bowlers
This kind of an effort is not possible on a pitch which does not allow maximum reward for an optimum hit. The ball has to really come on to the bat to get that kind of a result. This pitch was actually a typical IPL belter. There is a saying in Indian cricket parlance that there is something called an “IPL wicket”. It means a surface which is a death-knell for bowlers, of any kind. Hyderabad rolled out one of that kind for this match. Everything timed in the first half of the game went the distance. It was one-way traffic, and a bit sad to see the bowlers reduced to nothing.
Spinners proved their worth
Was there nothing to talk about on the bowling front? Not quite. There were these Rajasthan Royals spinners making a statement. Yes, Yuzvendra Chahal went away with the accolades. But Ravichandran Ashwin was almost equally as effective. They used their skills and intelligence in equal measure. It was a nightmare of a pitch for bowlers, and these two brought into play their natural abilities, game reading, mind games and everything else. It was brilliant, considering the nature of the pitch. Chasing 200-plus is not alien to the IPL or T20s. These two made sure that this was not one such day.