David Warner led Sunrisers Hyderabad to a maiden Indian Premier League (IPL) title on Sunday after the bowlers derailed Royal Challengers Bangalore’s chase to fashion an eight-run victory. “I really missed being in Bangalore, but I’m happy that the boys managed to pull off a great win”.
Advertisement
In this season the bowlers have had a word or two to say as well. To lead this side and the support from the players, me pulling my weight with the runs, it has been a hard journey. We would have loved to be on other side of result. “Also, it’s good for our franchise because it is the first time we have won”, he said. I mentioned it before the finals, this was for people of Bengaluru. But we just needed to stick together and take a few wickets. “As an opening batsman, I wouldn’t want to come up against him on a wicket like this because he sets the tone from ball one”. Me and AB getting out close to each other was a big blow. “For us, the key was team effort all the way”, Warner said at the post-match presentation ceremony.
It was David Warner’s batting and astute captaincy complemented by some inspirational death overs bowling by Mustafizur Rahaman (1/37 in 4 overs) and Bhuvneshwar Kumar (0/25 in 4 overs) that clinched the issue.
South African batsman AB de Villiers also departed soon after and the wheels started to come off for Bangalore in the face of a resilient Hyderabad attack, with man-of-the-match Cutting finishing with 2-35.
Leg-spinner Yuzvendra Chahal, who remained the team’s top wicket taker of the season with 21, got the first breakthrough in Dhawan who mistimed a slog sweep to deep square leg. But kind of team bonding we have got is exceptional and that helped us in coming out strong.
Yuvraj, who scored 38 in the final against RCB, said: “Had never tasted the sweetness of an IPL trophy and this is something really wonderful”.
With the foundation laid, Ali took the game away from Sri Lanka with a solid unbeaten knock of 155 while sharing 70-run stand with Jonny Bairstow and another 72 runs with Steven Finn to take the first innings total to 498 before they declared.
Bangalore’s bowlers were tried their best to stop their trains.
Advertisement
A rampaging RCB was 114 for no loss in the 11th over, but Warner said he had not lost faith at that stage. RCB’s season has been pretty much similar; after the matches on May 8, they were down in the dumps – with just two wins in eight matches and sandwiched between Rising Pune Supergiants and Kings XI Punjab, two teams who eventually finished in the bottom two places.
