Match 50 of the 2022 IPL saw David Warner thump his old franchise with a sublime knock. DC had an almost perfect game, but for SRH, the struggles were all the same. Let’s look at some key moments from the game.
Bhuvneshwar’s perfect opening spell
DC scored 207 runs off their 20 overs at 10.35 RPO. Amidst the carnage at the other end, Bhuvaneshwar Kumar was outstanding for SRH. In his four overs, Kumar conceded just 25 runs at 6.25 RPO, including a maiden.
The key to Kumar’s bowling was his length with the new ball. In his first two overs, he bowled 11 balls on good length or just short of good length. All the 11 balls were dots. The only ball he bowled on a slightly fuller length, he conceded a single. With his ability to swing the new ball, his lengths were perfect and he got rewarded for bowling the right lengths.
David Warner – Pacing his inning
David Warner played a superlative inning of unbeaten 92 off 58 balls. The key to his batting against his former franchise was his understanding of when to attack and defend. Warner paced his inning nicely, and despite taking calculative risks, his strike rate didn’t drop below 158 in any phase. He was smart enough to know when to go for the boundaries and when to rely on rotating the strike.
In the Powerplay, Warner had a dot ball percentage of 45% – his highest in any phase of the match. However, his boundary percentage of 83.87% was also his highest of the inning. In the phase between overs 7-15, Warner scored 57.14% of his runs in boundaries, but he made up for it by running quick between the wickets, ensuring he had a dot ball percentage of just 26.9%.
In the death overs, despite playing a few dot balls, he ensured that the momentum wasn’t lost and hit 84.21% of his runs in boundaries. Very few people can master the art of playing through the innings and yet maintain a high tempo throughout the innings. David Warner has been doing so better than most players in the world and now has the most 50+ scores in T20s (89).
Williamson dragging back SRH
Kane Williamson has been extremely poor for SRH this season. With a minimum of 100 balls faced, the Kiwi is one amongst two batters to have a strike rate of less than 100 in this season of IPL, Venkatesh Iyer being the other batter. So far, Williamson has scored 199 runs, striking at 96.1 runs per 100 balls.
He’s been worse in the Powerplay, where he has a strike rate of just 79.5. Out of his 10 innings, he has been dismissed inside the Powerplay six times. Against DC, when the asking rate was 10.4 RPO, Williamson played 11 balls for his four runs, a strike rate of 36.36. It would be interesting to see how long SRH wait for their captain to get back to scoring freely as so far, he has been hurting his team’s chances.