Sunrisers Hyderabad bowlers bowled remarkably well to restrict the star-studded batters of Chennai Super Kings to 167/6 at Dubai International Stadium on Tuesday. MS Dhoni-skippered CSK are currently experiencing their worst-IPL season as the 2019 runners-up have lost 5 from 7 games with very less time remaining for them to revive their campaign. SRH, on the other hand, are placed at 5th spot on the IPL 2020 points table. A win for them tonight will help them break into the top-four for the first time.
Chennai Super Kings won the toss and opted to bat first. The CSK team management made a big change in batting order by sending Sam Curran and Faf du Plessis out in the middle to start the proceedings. For Sunrisers, Sandeep Sharma was given the new ball in hand.
Curran was sent out early on to give CSK a quick start, presumably, but Sandeep Sharma bowled a brilliant first over to keep him quiet. After that first tidy over, Khaleel Ahmed shared the new ball with him and was welcomed with a great cut shot from Curran for the first boundary of the match but made a good comeback to give just seven runs from the match.
ALSO READ | IPL 2020: Sunrisers Hyderabad Skipper David Warner Just 19 Runs Short Of Attaining Massive IPL Record
While Curran was busy with the action, Faf remained standing silent on the non-strikers end for the first over. Sandeep Sharma in his second over got the early breakthrough by bowling a peach of a delivery to get Faf du Plessis edge one to the wicket-keeper Bairstow for a first-ball duck.
Shane Watson, was the next man in for CSK at number three and it was for the first time even the Aussie batting great was batting at any position other than the opening for Chennai Super Kings.
After losing Faf for zero, Curran did not let the pressure get the best of him and put his foot on the paddle to take the attack to Khaleel by dispatching him to the stands for six and also few boundaries to get quick 22 runs from his over.
Sunrisers, after witnessing an over to forget, decided to continue with Sandeep Sharma from the other end, which proved to be a masterstroke from skipper David Warner. Sharma cleaned up Sam Curran for 22-ball 31 to end his fiery cameo at the top.
Curran became Sandeep's second wicket of the day after which Watson and Rayudu provided stability to CSK. After the pair fell, MS Dhoni and later Jadeja pushed CSK beyond the 150-run mark.
Brief scores: CSK 167/6 in 20 overs (Shane Watson 42, Ambati Rayudu 41; Sandeep Sharma 2/19)
Sunrisers Hyderabad (Playing XI): David Warner(c), Jonny Bairstow(w), Manish Pandey, Kane Williamson, Priyam Garg, Vijay Shankar, Shahbaz Nadeem, Rashid Khan, Sandeep Sharma, Khaleel Ahmed, T Natarajan
Chennai Super Kings (Playing XI): Shane Watson, Faf du Plessis, Ambati Rayudu, MS Dhoni(w/c), Ravindra Jadeja, Sam Curran, Dwayne Bravo, Deepak Chahar, Piyush Chawla, Shardul Thakur, Karn Sharma