Awesome, incredible, superhuman - these are the words that must have been repeated in your mouth after watching Sunrisers Hyderabad bat this season of IPL. Why not? The Travis Head-Abhishek Sharma pair is making one after another feat with the bat. In this season, Hyderabad has already achieved the feat of collecting the highest total in the history of IPL. This time they have also made the record of chasing the biggest target by playing the least number of balls.
Hyderabad reached the target of 166 runs given by Lucknow Supergiants in a total of 9.4 overs or 58 balls. No one else has achieved such a feat in recognized men's T20.
Lucknow won the toss and decided to bat first at Hyderabad's home ground. They could not take advantage in the first 10 overs under the influence of Bhuvneshwar Kumar. At this time the scoreboard accumulated 57 runs for 3 wickets. However, in the second half of the innings, Caribbean batter Nicholas Puran and Ayush Badoni got the fighting capital of 99 runs. Their run in 20 overs stood at 165 for 4 wickets.
Ayush remains unbeaten on 55 off 30 balls with 9 fours, Puran's 48* off 26 balls. Hyderabad pacer Bhuvneshwar took 2 wickets at the cost of 12 runs after completing the quota of 4 overs.
In IPL, the fountain of runs is running in almost every match, but the collection of 165 runs is not insignificant. A good bowling attack has a pattern of success with this group of targets. But where the bowlers of Lucknow could do 'good bowling'!
Chasing 166 runs, Hyderabad's two openers Head and Abhishek's bat became the open sword. Head scored 89 runs with four sixes from 30 balls. Abhishek hit 75 off 28 balls with an even number of fours and two less sixes.
With their superhuman batting, Hyderabad took a step closer to the playoffs with a big 10-wicket victory. With this victory, their points from 12 matches are now 14, and they are third in the table.