Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH), on Monday, registered their second win of the ongoing Indian Premier League (IPL) 2022 after defeating Gujarat Titans (GT) by eight wickets at Mumbai’s Dr DY Patil Sports Academy.
After asking Gujarat to bat first, Sunrisers got the early breakthrough in the form of Shubman Gill, courtesy of exceptional fielding by Rahul Tripathi. It all happened during the third over when Bhuvneshwar Kumar delivered a wide half volley teasing Gill to have a go at it.
The batter did precisely that and tried to pierce through the short extra cover region where Rahul was stationed. The 31-year-old displayed a superman effort and dived to his left to pluck a one-handed stunner to dismiss Gill, who had to walk back to the pavilion after scoring just 7 runs.
Here is the video:
Rahul tripathi stunning catch… #GTvsSRH #SRHvGT pic.twitter.com/UA0focDkgi
— Chinthakindhi Ramudu (O- Negitive) (@RAMURAVANA) April 11, 2022
Losing Gill early did impact the run-flow of Gujarat as they ended up posting 162/7 in 20 overs, thanks to an unbeaten knock of 50 runs off 42 balls by captain Hardik Pandya and Abhinav Manohar, who chipped in with a valuable contribution of 35 runs from 21 deliveries.
Bhuvneshwar, who removed Gill, took one more scalp to complete his two-wicket haul for 37 runs in 4 overs. Left-arm pacer T Natarajan also bagged a couple of wickets while giving away 34 runs in his quota of 4 overs.
In response, a fine half-century by SRH skipper Kane Williamson and noteworthy efforts by Abhishek Sharma and Nicholas Pooran powered the Sunrisers to an eight-wicket victory.
“It was, I thought, a very good game of cricket. Probably it was a par total. They had a strong bowling attack. We wanted to get partnerships, and we got that. The guys have been clear about the roles. There are a number of challenges. The execution was largely good. It was tough to hit through the line. Nice to get some partnerships and get across the line. It is just about guys going out there and trying to perform for the team. It was a nice improved performance today,” said Williamson after the match.
