Warner’s aggression not only put Raina on backfoot but also allowed his partner and out-of-form Shikhar Dhawan (53*) to play without pressure and get a few runs under his belt. Kumar added two more wickets against his name to halt Lions at 135/8. If we could get them out, the team wouldn’t score too many. SRH won the 15th IPL season 9 match by 10 wickets. The cornerstone of which, of course, was the Aussie’s unbeaten 74 (48b, 9×4). The right-hander will be Hyderabad’s biggest danger as he has scores of 74, 50 and 67 not out respectively in the three matches so far.
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His knock of 75 runs from 48 balls was only a run shy of match’s highest 75 from rival skipper Suresh Raina.
Mustafizur Rahman and the Sunrisers bowling corps will need to find a way to dismiss Australia’s Aaron Finch, the Gujarat opener who has scored at least 50 in all three Lions matches so far, and has been named Man of the Match in all three games, only the second IPL player to win three straight Man of the Match awards.
The wicket, which had a decent covering of grass on the tramlines, didn’t play true.
In the first Innings, Gujarat Lions is on strike and enters Finch and Brendon on the crease ball by Bhubaneswar Kumar. With three back-to-back fifties under his belt, Finch lent credence to the law of averages by falling for a duck. Off the first ball he faced, Raina pounced on to a fuller length delivery and smoked it through covers for a boundary to enter the elite 6000-run club. First ball is scheduled for 8 p.m. India Standard Time at Saurashtra Cricket Association Stadium in Rajkot, India, on Thursday, April 21. Dinesh Karthik, Dwayne Bravo and Jadeja would be handy in the batting front for the Lions. The ankle injury sustained during the World Twenty20 has ruled out their key all-rounder Yuvraj Singh for at least the first two weeks and they are yet to overcome the shock of losing him, let alone finding a right replacement for the southpaw.
“Batting with Warner takes pressure off me, he’s in such good form”, Dhawan said.
Earlier, skipper Raina hit a stroke-filled 75 but Sunrisers Hyderabad bowlers showed a lot of discipline to restrict Gujarat Lions to a modest 135 for eight after putting the home team in to make first use of the wicket.
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Mustafizur continued to be impressive with his death-overs bowling as he conceded only 19 runs in his four overs. But then fell in the eighth over to left-arm spinner Bipul Sharma (1-10), his mishit caught in the deep. The Suresh Raina-led side utilized their all-round skills to post three victories out of three to begin their journey in IPL 2016.
