Glenn Phillips went 6,6,6,4 before Shimron Hetmyer held on to a swirling catch and Rajasthan Royals thought they had finally pocketed two points in Jaipur on Sunday. But the match wasn’t over till it was finally over. Defending 16 in the last over, Sandeep Sharma made it five from one before he overstepped on the final ball of the match, giving Sunrisers Hyderabad a bonus delivery that Abdul Samad drilled over his head for six to fashion the biggest upset of this IPL.
Jos Buttler (95) and Sanju Samson (66*) took a heavy toll of Sunrisers’ insipid bowling, striking superlative fifties as Rajasthan Royals piled up 214/2, the highest at the Sawai Man Singh Stadium this season. Sunrisers raised 51 for the first wicket — their best opening partnership of the season — before Abhishek Sharma carved a decent fifty, Rahul Tripathi hit 47 off 29 and Heinrich Klaasen carved a 12-ball 26.
Jaipur isn’t one of the bigger grounds in India. Murugan Ashwin and Ravichandran Ashwin conceded 25 in two overs as Sunrisers reached 98/1 after 11 overs. One more 19-run over from Murugan where Tripathi and Klaasen struck two sixes and a four and Sunrisers were staring at an equation of 79 from 36 balls. Yuzvendra Chahal almost set up the win after that, dismissing Tripathi and SRH skipper Aiden Markram in the 18th over but Phillips and Samad scored 42 off 14 balls to engineer a dramatic turnaround.
Earlier, Royals batted themselves into a position of strength exploiting consecutive partnerships— an opening stand of 54 off 30 balls between Yashasvi Jaiswal and Buttler before Samson joined the England player to add 138 off 101 balls. In prime form this season, Jaiswal probably missed out on an easy fifty. Vivrant Sharma made a mess of an easy catch at deep fine-leg in the first over from Bhuvneshwar Kumar but apart from that Jaiswal gave no quarter to Sunrisers’ bowlers. Marco Jansen was pulled for six and Kumar was launched over long-on before Jaiswal got out against the run of play when Jansen lured him into guiding a rising delivery to T Natarajan at short third man.
{{/usCountry}}Earlier, Royals batted themselves into a position of strength exploiting consecutive partnerships— an opening stand of 54 off 30 balls between Yashasvi Jaiswal and Buttler before Samson joined the England player to add 138 off 101 balls. In prime form this season, Jaiswal probably missed out on an easy fifty. Vivrant Sharma made a mess of an easy catch at deep fine-leg in the first over from Bhuvneshwar Kumar but apart from that Jaiswal gave no quarter to Sunrisers’ bowlers. Marco Jansen was pulled for six and Kumar was launched over long-on before Jaiswal got out against the run of play when Jansen lured him into guiding a rising delivery to T Natarajan at short third man.
{{/usCountry}}Not only did Jaiswal’s innings provide Royals an emphatic start, it also deflected attention off Buttler, who was batting at a run a ball till the eighth over. A flat-batted six off Mayank Markande, followed by a straight six off Sharma, finally unshackled Buttler. One hit away from a well-deserved hundred, Kumar pinned Buttler with a yorker while he was trying to shuffle across the stumps.
By then, Samson was already cashing in on Royals’ quickfire start, carting Markande for two sixes in the ninth over that yielded 21 runs. Reaching 150 in the 15th over, Royals added 60 runs in the last five overs as Samson struck two more sixes off Markande to reach his fifty off 33 balls.