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Shahbaz and Abhishek spin Sunrisers Hyderabad into IPL final
“There’s nothing more satisfying than hearing a big crowd go silent.” Pat Cummins, November 18, 2023. The next day he took Virat Kohli’s wicket and made a ground with 100,000 people feel like a ghost town.
“We have earned the right to have one of those days and still win tournaments.” Pat Cummins, May 21, 2024. It’s taken a little while longer for him to walk the talk but boy when he says something we best listen. Sunrisers Hyderabad marched into the final of IPL 2024 and this time they did it with their bowling.
It looked like Rajasthan Royals had won a crucial toss and they did the right thing by opting to chase. One square boundary was significantly shorter than the other (61m vs 72m) and asymmetry like that makes it really hard to defend totals, especially if the dew came in, but it didn’t. All of a sudden SRH had a dry ball and a dry pitch. And they worked a miracle on that.
Shahbaz Ahmed originally came into this game to try and shore up a stop-start batting innings. It was the second time in two playoff games that SRH had to pull the Impact Player trigger early. He made 17 in a partnership of 43 with Heinrich Klaasen to push the total up to 175. But that total looked light when Yashasvi Jaiswal raced to 41 off 19 balls. The game was slipping away. Except it had also shown SRH a way to claw back. Jaydev Unadkat’s first over – the seventh – showed signs of how much the ball was gripping. SRH had no specialist spinner in their line-up but in conditions like these you don’t need specialists. You just need people that can turn the ball and hold a line. Shahbaz did that and more, winning a match-up he was second-favourite in. Bowling into the left-hander’s hitting arc, he handed Jaiswal his first dismissal to spin since IPL 2022.
Cummins brought Abhishek Sharma, who had bowled only three overs this campaign, from the other end. He even called Aiden Markram to roll his arm over. The pitch was now taking handsome amounts of turn and Cummins used any means in his armoury to exploit it. SRH produced a 33-ball period without a single boundary using bowlers whom they haven’t really had to turn to but were there now at this crucial time. This 33-ball period also included four wickets. Shahbaz who hadn’t picked up a wicket since April 5 turned up with 4-0-23-3 tonight. Abhishek, who had bowled his full quota of overs only twice before Friday, finished with 4-0-24-2.
SRH have one of the world’s best batters as a finisher and that played a big part in their win. Heinrich Klaasen does not need any protection. He does not need his entry point to be delayed because he has the ability to move through the gears. He can resurrect a failing innings with risk-free shots and still find ways to hit boundaries when he needs to. He was 21 off 20 balls in the 13th over. SRH were 108 for 4 at that point. Batting in Chennai is tricky because of the slowness of the pitches here. Mis-hits can still go for four in the powerplay when there are only two fielders outside the circle but that luck runs out once the field restrictions are lifted. Klaasen understood this nuance and waited for his moments; his match-ups. He has an excellent one against Yuzvendra Chahal and that’s whom he targeted, hitting two mighty sixes, including one to the long boundary. The back-foot drive over extra cover was breathtaking.
Looking back now, all the good work RR did feels bittersweet. Trent Boult gave them a first-over wicket for the seventh time this season breaking a partnership that has rewritten history. Abhishek and Travis Head have been scoring their runs at 13.64 an over, the best in IPL history (min 300 runs scored).
Sandeep Sharma bowled 18 slower balls in his spell for just 17 runs and picked up the wicket of Head. His yorker, where he changed his action to be extra slingy, slipped underneath Klaasen in prime hitting form and knocked out his stumps. RR gave away only 12 runs in the last two overs with Avesh Khan executing his yorkers near perfectly. He dismissed Nitish Kumar Reddy, who actually had a decent plan against those yorkers – the reverse scoop because there was no one on the deep-third boundary – by refusing to give him a ball to get underneath. It was high quality planning and execution.
RR’s strength in their bowling comes at a price. The batting depth. And they felt it all the more acutely because Jos Buttler has left to link up with the England squad to prepare for the T20 World Cup and Shimron Hetmyer has been carrying an injury. They tried covering up for it by sending R Ashwin at No. 6 but it didn’t work.
Tom Kohler-Cadmore, who was brought in to open the batting in place of Buttler, looked out of his depth, scoring 6 off 13 before being dismissed for 10 off 16. Sanju Samson made a mistake under pressure, looking to access the long boundary and getting caught for 10 off 11. Riyan Parag was facing 3.3 degrees of turn on average and he too made the wrong call, looking to hit across the line and getting caught off the top edge for 6 off 10. Dhruv Jurel fought hard for a while, scoring 56 off 35 balls, but the balance of power never really looked like it was shifting.
SRH have produced some scintillating performances in this IPL but this – winning with their weaker suit – was special. They’re going to be a serious threat to Kolkata Knight Riders on Sunday.
Brief scores:
Sunrisers Hyderabad 175/9 in 20 overs (Heinrich Klaasen 50, Rahul Tripathi 37, Travis Head 34; Avesh Khan 3-27, Trent Boult 3-45, Sandeep Sharma 2-25) beat Rajasthan Royals 139/7 in 20 overs (Dhruv Jurel 56*, Yashasvi Jaiswal 42; Pat Cummins 1-30, T Natarajan 1-13, Shahbaz Ahmed 3-23, Abhishek Sharma 2-24) by 36 runs
(Cricinfo)
The aid group Doctors Without Borders has reported recovering 11 bodies and rescuing dozens of people off the coast of Libya as it criticised the migration policies of the North African country and European countries.
In a statement on Friday, the group, known by its French initials MSF, said its Geo Barents rescue vessel managed to recover the bodies following a search operation lasting more than nine hours after being alerted by German nongovernmental organisation Sea-Watch, which also rescues refugees and migrants.
“As we cannot determine the reason behind this tragedy, we know that people will continue to take dangerous routes in a desperate attempt to reach safety, and Europe must find safe and legal pathways for them,” MSF said in a post on X. “This catastrophe must end!”
Sea-Watch said it is unclear whether the bodies were victims of a previously unknown shipwreck, adding that they tried to contact Libya’s coastguard to go and retrieve the dead, but received no reply.
“The so-called Libyan coastguard – financed by the EU – ignored our call demanding that the bodies be recovered,” the group said.
Thousands of people trying to head from Africa to Europe use Libya as a departing point, with the Italian island of Lampedusa the nearest European destination as they undertake the dangerous journey across the Mediterranean to escape war, poverty and persecution.
Italy, which wants to put a stop to the migration stream, has said Libya and neighbouring Tunisia must do more to stop people from going to sea. It has also clamped down on the operation of the rescue ships, arguing that they encourage people to head to Europe, a charge that is denied by the charities.
Emphasising its policy on the rescue ships, Italy said on Friday that it forced the MSF rescue vessel to take the 165 people that it had saved from boats in the Mediterranean operation to the northern port of Genoa. The port was more than 650 nautical miles (1,200km) from their position and much farther than the more convenient ports in nearby Sicily, significantly delaying assistance to the rescued.
The route in the central Mediterranean is the most dangerous migrant crossing in the world, with the United Nations registering more than 20,000 deaths and disappearances in the area since 2014.
More than 3,000 refugees and migrants went missing in 2023 while attempting to use the route, according to the International Organization for Migration.
According to Italy’s interior ministry, the number of arrivals in the country has dropped in 2024 to fewer than 21,800 people since the beginning of the year, compared with close to 53,300 in the same period last year.
[Aljazeera]
Nuwan Thushara’s last over brought Sri Lanka screaming back into the match,as he first bowled Rishad Hossain, and then nailed Taskin Ahmed in front of the stumps with a pinpoint swinging yorker. This left Bangladesh eight wickets down, with 12 runs still to get.
However, the experienced Mahmudullah was at the crease for Bangladesh, and despite some further nervy moments, pushed Bangladesh across the line off the last ball of the 19th over.
But this was a match chiefly decided by Bangladesh’s own outstanding bowling. Mustafizur Rahman was the best among them, using shorter lengths and his cutters efficiently, to claim figures of 3 for 17. Rishad Hossain’s three-for through the middle overs also kept Sri Lanka quiet.
Mustafizur was instrumental in Sri Lanka’s downward spiral through the middle overs, which culminated in a crash-and-burn end. Ultimately, their inability to find boundaries, or even rotate strike against good Bangladesh bowling resulted in their downfall. A score of 125 for 9 always seemed poor on a decent pitch, even if their bowlers made a match of it in the end.
Brief scores:
Bangladesh 125 for 8 in 19 overs (Towhid Hridoy 40, Litton Das 36; Dhanajaya de Silva 1-11, Nuwan Thushara 4-18, Wanidu Hasaranga 2-32, Matheesha Pathirana 1-27) beat Sri Lanka124 for 9 in 20 overs (Pathum Nissanka 47, Dhananjaya de Silva 21; Tanzim Hasan Sakib 1-24, Taskin Ahmed 2-25, Mustafizur Rahman 3-17, Rishad Hossain 3-22) by two wickets
[Cricinfo]
Afghanistan boosted their Super Eight chances with yet another dominating win, this time thumping New Zealand by 84 runs in Providence. Having beaten Uganda by 125 runs in their opening match, they are now at the top of Group C with a net run rate of 5.225.
After being sent in, Rahmanullah Gurbaz and Ibrahim Zadran gave Afghanistan a start of 103 in 14.3 overs. It came off the back of the 154 the pair added against Uganda, thus making them the first opening pair to register two successive century stands in the history of the T20 World Cup.
Afghanistan’s was an innings of two halves. They scored 55 for no loss in the first ten overs and 104 for 6 in the last ten, with Gurbaz contributing 80 off 56 balls. New Zealand, who had decided not to play any warm-up games, looked every bit rusty as their fielders dropped catches and missed run-out opportunities.
With the pitch assisting both seamers and spinners, chasing 160 was not going to be easy. But few would have expected New Zealand to collapse in the manner they did.
Fazalhaq Farooqi picked up three wickets in the powerplay and Rashid Khan three just after it. Eventually, both ended with identical figures of 4 for 17 as New Zealand were bowled out for 75 in the 15.2 overs. Glenn Phillips and Matt Henry were the only New Zealand batters to reach the double digits.
Trent Boult found some swing in the opening over but Gurbaz and Ibrahim showed their intent by picking up three fours off Henry from the other end. Both batters had luck on their side, too. Gurbaz got a second life when he skipped down the track to Santner and missed the ball, which went on to brush the leg stump but the bails did not budge. In the following over, Finn Allen dropped Ibrahim off Henry at the deep-square-leg boundary.
That was not all. Gurbaz got another reprieve after being involved in a miscommunication with Ibrahim. Having taken off for a single, Gurbaz had to retrace his steps and would have been run out had Conway not fumbled the throw.
Two balls later, New Zealand finally seemed to have found success when Santner pinged Ibrahim’s pads and umpire Kumar Dharmasena ruled it lbw. But the batter got the decision overturned on review as the ball was heading down the leg side. Immediately after that, Ibrahim hit Santner for an inside-out four as Afghanistan ended the powerplay on 44 for no loss.
New Zealand went against the prevailing wisdom of not bowling an offspinner when two right-hand batters at the crease, and Michael Bracewell repaid that faith by conceding only six off his first two overs.
Lockie Ferguson was even more frugal, going for five in his first two. He could have had Ibrahim off a slower full toss but a leaping Kane Williamson failed to pull off a one-handed stunner at mid-off. That meant while Afghanistan remained unscathed, they had only 55 on the board after ten overs.
Afghanistan had not hit a single six in the first ten overs, but there were five in the next three, including three in one Bracewell over as Gurbaz and Bracewell stepped on the accelerator. The pair took the side past 100 in the 14th over. New Zealand finally broke through when Ibrahim bottom-edged a short ball from Henry onto his stumps, after having been hit on the grille on the previous delivery.
Promoted to No. 3, Azmatullah Omarzai played his part with 22 off 13, which included two sixes in three balls off Henry. Mohammad Nabi fell for a first-ball duck but Gurbaz kept finding the boundary at regular intervals. However, a three-wicket, three-run final over by Boult kept Afghanistan to 159.
Farooqi gave Afghanistan a dream start with the ball. With the very first delivery of the innings, he uprooted Finn Allen’s leg stump as the ball moved in late. In the seamer’s next over, Conway pushed at one that seemed to come slower off the surface and was caught at extra cover.
The decision to give Farooqi a third over in the powerplay brought further rewards. This time, bowling around the wicket to Daryl Mitchell, he got a length delivery to just straighten and take the outside edge. Gurbaz took a regulation catch to complete the dismissal and leave New Zealand 28 for 3.
It could have been worse for New Zealand. In between, Naveen-ul-Haq had rapped Kane Williamson’s front pad after the batter had moved across to play a delivery. Afghanistan sent it upstairs for an lbw review but the umpire’s call saved the New Zealand captain.
Afghanistan did not have to wait too long for Williamson’s wicket. Rashid brought himself on after the powerplay and struck straightaway as Williamson guided one to first slip. But Rashid was just warming up. In his next over, he dismissed Mark Chapman and Bracewell off successive deliveries to leave New Zealand on 43 for 6. Chapman went for a pull and got bowled; Bracewell was late to bring his bat down and was lbw.
Phillips was New Zealand’s last hope. He did hit a couple of boundaries but was soon caught at long-on when he tried to take on Nabi. That ended any hopes of revival New Zealand might have had.
Brief scores:
Afghanistan 159 for 6 in 20 overs (Rahmanullah Gurbaz 80, Ibrahim Zadran 44, Azmatullah Omarzai 22; Trent Boult 2-22, Matt Henry 2-37, Lockie Fergusoan 1-28) beat New Zealand 75 in 15.2 overs (Glenn Phillips 18; Rashid Khan 4 for 17, Fazalhaq Farooqi 4 for 17, Mohammad Nabi 2-16) by 84 runs
[Cricinfo]
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