Daniel Vettori tried not to look too worried. “We were satisfied at the halfway mark,” the Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) head coach insisted in his post-match press conference, even though his side had just been bundled out for 86 and beaten by 82 runs in Ahmedabad. Gujarat Titans’ (GT) pace unit – Kagiso Rabada, Mohammed Siraj, Jason Holder and Prasidh Krishna – shared 9 for 82 in a 14-over burst that left nothing but rubble.
First, the basics. Titans were held to 168 for 5 after being asked to bat. Sai Sudharsan nudged and nurdled a 44-ball 61, Washington Sundar’s late 50 off 33 gave the total a nudge, and nobody else really broke free. It looked about par, maybe a touch under. SRH’s quicks – Pat Cummins, Praful Hinge, Sakib Hussain – all cost under seven an over, and Hinge in particular grabbed Shubman Gill and Jos Buttler in the powerplay.
That is why Vettori’s mood, at the interval at least, was upbeat. “Every team is going to have small blips and ours was tonight,” he said, describing the target as “very gettable” on a used surface. The optimism lasted all of two overs once Rabada found rhythm.
Three wickets in his first spell – Rahul Tripathi, Abhishek Sharma, Aiden Markram – and SRH were 20 for 3. Siraj bounced out Heinrich Klaasen, Holder forced a cramped push from Nitish Reddy, and by the tenth over the chase was gone. Rashid Khan did not even need to do anything spectacular; he just dried up an end.
Sanjay Bangar, speaking on ESPNcricinfo TimeOut, felt the groundwork for both innings was laid by SRH’s own planning. “There were some exceptional bowling plans, starting from how they bowled to Sai Sudharsan, bowling that leg-stump line and not giving him anything to score off – this is the first time that I have seen him score [so few] runs behind point on the off side [he scored just 13 of his 61 in that region],” Bangar said. “Even to Nishant Sindhu, you saw that the third man was very fine and they attempted the bouncer. Pat Cummins taking the mid-on fielder back – now this is something which generally doesn’t happen against high-quality fast bowlers, where they are happy to get that mid-off up and push long on back.”
Ambati Rayudu, on the same show, highlighted how SRH’s seamers kept things simple. “They just didn’t go to the slower ball very early – like how generally they do in other grounds – they bowled seam-up for quite a bit,” Rayudu said. “That was quite effective on this kind of a surface and they bowled slower once the ball got a little old. They played the conditions really, really well.”
For a side that eventually crashed by such a margin, SRH did plenty right with the ball: Cummins and Hinge conceded less than a run-a-ball, Hussain’s cutters worked, and only the usually miserly Eshan Malinga took heavy punishment. Cummins’ decision to hold one over back for the death looked smart too, limiting a late surge.
The batting, though, was a shambles. With Travis Head resting a sore groin, the top order had a different shape and never quite settled. Sudharsan’s earlier success showed there were runs to be had if a player could manage the wickedly inconsistent bounce, yet nobody in orange reached 20. After Rabada’s initial burst, Siraj and Holder attacked the stumps, mixing back-of-a-length seam with an occasional yorker. Krishna, coming on fourth, cleaned up the tail. It was brisk, brutal, professional.
The result hardly wrecks SRH’s season – they remain third – but it does crowd the race for the top-two spots. The Titans, meanwhile, tighten their grip on second and improve net run-rate, an unglamorous yet crucial detail.
Vettori was not keen to dramatise things. He acknowledged the scoreboard yet repeated the importance of context: his seamers had delivered, his plans had worked, just the batting had misfired. A blip. The coach also credited Titans’ aggression. “We knew coming up against their bowling line-up and the fact that they had five seamers plus Rashid was always going to be a challenge,” he said. “We didn’t get the start we wanted and they were able to capitalise the whole way through and their bowling was brilliant.”
Bangar agreed, in his own understated way: SRH planned well, GT executed better. Strip out the frills and that was the story.
