Sunrisers Hyderabad vs Chennai Super Kings was a game between the team languishing at the bottom of the table and the table toppers. Match 44 in the 2021 Indian Premier League might have been a mismatch, but with late twists and turns, it lived up to the expectations of being an IPL match.
The Sharjah Cricket Stadium produced yet another tricky surface, and after winning the toss, MS Dhoni decided to bowl first. After a poor performance in the previous game, Sam Curran was left out of the playing XI, with Dwayne Bravo coming back to replace him in the team. The Sunrisers after defeating Rajasthan Royals in their last game went in with an unchanged side.
The Sunrisers got off to a decent start courtesy Wriddhiman Saha but Josh Hazlewood provided an early breakthrough, removing Jason Roy in his second over. While Saha continued to grind his way through some runs, the other batters struggled to get any rhythm into their innings and failed to provide any momentum.
The fact that most SRH batters managed to get starts and yet couldn’t push the team towards a big total showed how difficult the pitch at Sharjah has become for run-scoring. Hazlewood, along with Bravo, strangled the batters and were ably supported by Ravindra Jadeja, who was again at his miserly best in the middle-overs. Saha was the pick of the batters, scoring 44 runs and helped SRH scrap through to 134 in 20 overs.
The opening duo of Ruturaj Gaikwad and Faf du Plessis once again gave CSK a solid start, scoring 47 runs in the powerplay. The pair ensured that there were no hiccups for CSK in a tricky chase by batting sensibly and picking their moments. They were finally separated when Gaikwad’s mistimed hoick found Williamson but not before putting CSK in a commanding position after an opening partnership of 75.
Jason Holder was once again a lone man fighting the battle for SRH, picking up three wickets in the middle overs. There was very little support to Holder from the other bowlers, who not only failed to pick wickets but couldn’t contain the scoring rate. Holder’s regular strikes helped the Sunrisers choke the Super Kings’ run flow, even stretching the game into the last stages of the match.
With 16 needed off the last two overs, Williamson turned to Bhuvaneshwar Kumar, his experienced and reliable death bowler but an ordinary oversaw him concede 13 runs off the penultimate over. Siddharth Kaul, tasked with an improbable task of defending just three runs in the final, was no match for The Finisher, as Dhoni finished yet another chase with a six, a six that not only ensured CSK a place in the playoffs but a final nail in SRH’s coffin, making them the first team to be officially eliminated from the playoff’s race.
Suresh Raina’s form might be a concern for Dhoni going into the playoff stage, but the other players have put their hands up in tough situations whenever the team needed them to, bailing them out. Hazlewood is an example of this, winning the ‘Player of the Match’ award after a not-so-great start to the UAE leg of this IPL. With this win, CSK now qualify for the playoffs for a record 11th time whereas SRH fail to qualify for the first time since 2015.