David Warner was at his brutal best with the bat on Monday night but the Australian World Cup winner credited Sunrisers’ impressive victory over Royal Challengers Bangalore to their bowling attack.
Warner cracked 57 off 27 balls and received excellent support from Shikhar Dhawan, 50 from 42 balls and Lokesh Rahul, 44 off 28 deliveries, to guide Sunrisers to an eight-wicket win with almost three overs to spare.
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However, the seeds had been sown in Bangalore’s innings when at 125-4, with four overs remaining, they were well-placed to target a total of 180-plus only to suffer a middle order collapse.
Much of the reason for that was performances of Ravi Bopara, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Trent Boult, who claimed three wickets inside four balls in the penultimate over, including that of AB de Villiers, leaving RCB to limp to 166 all out, a total that ultimately proved far too short.
Congratulations @davidwarner31, the MOM. What an innings! A simply outstanding knock! #SRH #RCBvSRH #OrangeArmy pic.twitter.com/rDQDTCqKCk
— SunRisers Hyderabad (@SunRisers) April 13, 2015
Sensing something was in the pitch at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium, Sunrisers put RCB into bat, a potentially risky ploy given the wealth of talent at the host’s disposal. But Warner obviously backed his bowlers and after an ominous start, in which Chris Gayle and Virat Kohli put on 41 for the first wicket, they got the ball rolling when Praveen Kumar removed the West Indies star for 21.
Gayle flicked Kumar straight to Ashish Reddy at deep square leg but Kohli held it together with some classy strokeplay.
After Dinesh Karthik fell cheaply for just nine, Kohli took RCB to within touching distance of 100 only to be clean bowled by Ravi Bopara.
Signs of the rot setting in began when Mandeep Singh went first ball, with Warner taking a fine catch at deep cover again off Bopara.
De Villiers nudged them towards 150 but then Boult found his range, tempting the South African to have a swing at a wide delivery before taking out Sean Abbott and Harshal Patel with well-angled slower balls.
Lets celebrate this well deserved victory. We performed brilliantly in all departments today.Cheers! #SRH#OrangeArmy pic.twitter.com/A9CPRev22A
— SunRisers Hyderabad (@SunRisers) April 13, 2015
The final over was then somewhat of a mess with Kumar cleaning up Abu Nechim and Varun Aaron with two yorkers.
Once Warner and Dhawan had put on 82 for the first wicket it was looking tough for the RCB bowling unit who just couldn’t force any chances or keep the run rate down.
Warner brought up his half-century before being trapped lbw by Yuzvendra Chahal and while the RCB spinner did remove Kane Williamson, Karthik taking a smart stumping, Dhawan and Rahul brought them home.
