DAZZLING DAVID WARNER LED THE WAY FOR SUNRISERS
Sunrisers Hyderabad had came into this match having lost both their matches convincingly to RCB and KKR respectively, so in a way it was a pressure game for them to at least open their account on points table. On a flat looking strip David Warner did manage to win the toss and without any hesitation opted to bowl first. Sunrisers could not have asked for a better start as everything was going in their way from winning the toss to getting wickets early. Bhuvneshwar Kumar swung the ball beautifully and really was bowling like a man possessed some serious skills, for a T20 game his figures were quite outstanding (4-0-17-1), he was very well backed up by the youngster Barinder Sran who went onto to pick 3 wickets in his 4 overs and was equally supported by Mustafizur Rahman and Moises Henriques. On the other hand Mumbai Indians dropped Kieron Pollard to make the way for Kiwi opener Martin Guptill, inclusion of Martin Guptill meant that either of Rohit or Parthiv will have to go down the order in the batting line up and just like the last season Rohit decided to put himself in the middle order. For all the excitement and buzz around Guptill’s late entry into this lucrative league his debut is not that impressive as he falls to a beautifully disguised outswinger from Bhuvi in the very first over for just 2. Rohit Sharma’s run out didn’t help the cause either for Mumbai Indians as they went onto lose 4 of their premier batsmen when the score was just 60 and more than half of the overs were gone. Ambati Rayudu and Krunal Pandya did manage to put on 63 runs partnership for the 5th wicket but some tight death bowling from the Sunrisers bowlers meant Mumbai could only reach 142 on a good batting strip. Although the target was looking stiff at the start but when someone like David Warner gets going one can’t do much as he made the mockery of the whole Mumbai attack with some scintillating stroke play and very swift running between the wickets. he made a match winning 90* in just 59 balls out of the 145 runs that Sunrisers scored which is approximately 63 % of the team total that’s how dominant he was. At the end Sunrisers went onto win the match in quite an emphatic way by 7 wickets with 15 balls to spare. It’s good for Sunrisers Hyderabad and their fans that they have registered their first victory but they need to carry this momentum throughout this tournament.