IPL 2019: Match 45, RR vs SRH, Review – Royals win the match; bring joy to the Chennai camp

With RR's win, Chennai Super Kings become the first team to qualify for the playoffs.

Published - 27 Apr 2019, 23:53 IST | Updated - 27 Apr 2019, 23:53 IST

2 Min Read

The Rajasthan Royals (RR) stay in the hunt for a playoffs spot as they have managed to defeat the Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) in their last home game this season. Liam Livingstone and Sanju Samson played great knocks in this game while all the bowlers were exceptional. The middle-order of the visitors was exposed yet again in this game as there was a massive collapse in between.

Moreover, this win has brought jubilation to the CSK camp. The ‘Men in Yellow’ are now the first to qualify into the playoffs and one more win might seal a spot for them in the top two. Another highlight of this game was Ashton Turner finally getting off the mark. The moment he scored a run, the entire RR dugout was clapping for him. David Warner also applauded the effort while Turner had a big smile and sigh of relief on his face.

Manish Pandey shines; middle order collapses

Kane Williamson, who was back as the skipper for SRH, lost the toss and his side was put into bat first. The Kiwi cricketer looked good initially. However, he didn’t pick a beautiful googly from Shreyas Gopal and was dismissed for 13 runs. David Warner and Manish Pandey then joined hands to build up yet another wonderful partnership. Once again, it was Manish Pandey who was the aggressor. The duo added 75 runs in real quick time.

Warner played an uncharacteristic knock and tried to take it deep. But, he fell after scoring 37 runs from 32 balls and didn’t even hit a single boundary during his knock. Manish also fell soon after stitching together 61 runs from 36 balls. SRH’s collapse began after this and none of the next four batsmen got to the double digits. From 121/2, they were reduced to 127/5 in no time.

The ship sank further as they were down to 147/8 after 19.3 overs. However, Rashid Khan came to the rescue with the bat. He finished the innings with a four and a six as the Sunrisers got to a respectable total of 160/8. Varun Aaron, Oshane Thomas, Shreyas Gopal and Jaydev Unadkat picked two wickets each. At one stage though, it seemed as if SRH would score something around 190.

Sanju Samson, Liam Livingstone guide RR to an easy win

Instead of Sanju Samson, Liam Livingstone walked out to open the batting in this game for RR with Ajinkya Rahane. Both these batsmen got them off to a flyer in the powerplay. 60 runs were scored in the first six overs. Of those, 16 runs came off a Rashid Khan over and another 20 were conceded by Siddarth Kaul. Both the openers took their chances and played some glorious shots. The English cricketer scored 44 runs in 26 balls before Rashid Khan found his edge which carried to the wicketkeeper.

Rahane also got out soon for 39 runs. However, Samson and Steve Smith did most of the job for the RR with a good partnership. The skipper scored 22 runs before he got out when his team was inches short of a win.