West Indies batting star Chris Gayle smashed a whirlwind half-century and passed 9,000 runs in Twenty20s, but his effort was in vain as Sunrisers Hyderabad edged Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) by eight runs to lift the 2016 Indian Premier League yesterday.
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Brief scores: Sunrisers Hyderabad 208/7 (Warner 69, Cutting 39*; Jordan 3/45) beat Royal Challengers Bangalore 200/7 (Gayle 76, Kohli 54; Cutting 2/35) by eight runs. Bating, first Hyderabad made 208 for seven, which was the highest ever score by a team batting first in an IPL final.
After 59 games and nearly two months of action, the IPL reaches a climax on Sunday when Royal Challengers Bangalore take on Sunrisers Hyderabad in the final.
“I wouldn’t like to be bowling to him in in the IPL”.
Cutting gave Hyderabad their first breakthrough to send back the risky Gayle, who smoked four fours and eight sixes during his 38-ball stay at the crease. Sunrisers Hyderabad won the toss and elected to bat first. And on Friday night, it was the turn of Sunrisers Hyderabad captain David Warner. The Royal Challengers Bangalore captain had taken apart attacks throughout the season and had nearly seemed unstoppable. “It is hard to get him out and if you do so, you have to get out Ab de Villiers and Shane Watson (who both bat in the top order for RCB) as well”, quipped Lawson.
ESPN will telecast the match in the US. But at last his batsmen, Ben Cutting hit 39 runs off just 15 balls and succeeded to cross 200 runs. De Villiers got dismissed after scoring mere five runs. In fact, it was their bowlers who won the match against KKR and batsman showed their aggression against match with GL. As of now, he just needs 81 runs to do it, and he has a finale for it.de Villiers has been consistent, and he has played crucial innings to make his team win whenever his requirement was there. “They have supported me a lot through the season and they have shared their knowledge with me every time I bowled”.
But, the Sunrisers lost Warner, Deepak Hooda and Yuvraj and Naman Ojha in a bid to up the ante, but Ben Cutting played probably his best innings of the tournament at crunch situation.
Replying to yet another query, Kohli said the youngsters, including Yuzuvendra Chahal should take Sunday’s match as any other game and enjoy in the middle as they did in the last six games.
Yuvraj, who scored 38 in the final against RCB on Sunday, said: “I had never tasted the sweetness of an IPL trophy and this is something really incredible”.
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In the half way mark, as they chased 208, it looked as if RCB will get the past the finish line easily.
