IPL 2021: Match 28 – RR vs SRH: Stats Review – Jos Buttler's T20 record, RR's huge total and more stats

It was a match between two bottom-placed teams and there were a total of five changes. One of them grabbed all the headlines and might be the most unexpected change of the season. After scoring 57(55) in a defeat against CSK, there was a lot of salt added to the injury. Warner was not just relieved of his captaincy duties but was also dropped from the team. Four consecutive failures and David Warner gets dropped from the team, which makes it particularly shocking because Warner scored most runs for SRH in every IPL season he played, and also finished in the top-4 run getters of each season.

After Kane Williamson began his captaincy for the franchise, he immediately acted differently from Warner by choosing to field first. He also took a decision which Warner never took before, by bowling Rashid Khan as early as in the third over. This also fetched an early reward as Rashid claimed the wicket of Yashaswi Jaiswal. So far so good but things went all downhill from here. Jos Buttler went on to score his maiden IPL hundred, with a huge 150-partnership with a supporting Sanju Samson. RR set a near-impossible target of 221 for the bottom-placed SRH. However, the chase started in a spirited manner with Jonny Bairstow and Manish Pandey adding 57 runs in the PowerPlay.

At that stage, they were 15 runs ahead of Rajasthan Royals in the PowerPlay. But immediately the next ball after the PowerPlay, former SRH player Mustafizur Rahman used his slower ball to dismiss Manish Pandey and break the partnership. Just like with the ball, from here things went no way in control of SRH. Kane Williamson who replaced Warner from captaincy duties had equally scratchy innings of 20 in 21 balls. SRH went on to lose yet another match, and this time it was clearly by a bigger margin than their other losses.

Here’s a look at the numbers produced from the RR-SRH IPL match

124 – Jos Buttler’s score in this match, which is the highest by a Rajasthan Royals batsman overtaking Sanju Samson’s 119 earlier in the same season. However, Rajasthan Royals could win only one match in between.

124 – Buttler’s 124 is now the highest by any player against Sunrisers Hyderabad in a winning cause. Rishabh Pant scored 128 against SRH in 2018, but the Sunrisers Hyderabad went on to win that match.

3 – Buttler’s knock is the third-highest score by a player at Delhi in IPL. The first two are both 128* by Rishabh Pant and Chris Gayle respectively.

220/3 – Rajasthan Royals total today, which is the third-highest by them in IPL history. The only two times they had a higher total in IPL was 226/6 against PBKS at Sharjah in 2020, and 223/5 against CSK at Chennai in 2010.

1 – This was the first time Rajasthan Royals scored 200+ runs in an IPL match against Sunrisers Hyderabad. Their previous highest total was 198/2 against SRH at Hyderabad in 2019, which the Sunrisers chased down.

3 – This is the third duck in a row for Rashid Khan. He thus becomes only the fourth player with three ducks in consecutive IPL innings after Gautam Gambhir, Rahul Sharma, and Ashton Turner.

55 runs – The third-biggest win against Sunrisers Hyderabad in IPL and the biggest in the last seven years. Only two occasions where SRH lost by a bigger margin were by 77 runs to CSK in 2013 and to Punjab Kings in 2014.

2014 – This is the seventh biggest IPL win by Rajasthan Royals in terms of runs, but the biggest win since defeating Delhi Capitals in 2014.

2 – This is the second time Mustafizur Rahman took 3 or more wickets in an IPL match since 2017, and two of them are against Sunrisers Hyderabad. He also bowled with figures of 3/24 against SRH in 2018, while playing for Mumbai Indians.