After huge stress as well as tension, finally the captainship of David Warner fetch his team Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) the magnificent IPL trophy to shape an 8-run-victory over Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) through their strong bowling power on Sunday.
At Bangalore’s Chinnaswamy Stadium after winning the toss, SRH opted for bat and successfully left a challenge of 208 runs for 7 wickets in front of RCB. Warner played extremely well as an opening batsman and made a top score of 69 runs. Though the starting of game for RCB was superb as the partnership of Chris Gayle (76 runs) and Virat Kohli (54 runs) was able to bring quite a much of 114 runs for their team but the big blow of bowling from the SRH threaten them a bit. Although Bhuvneshwar Kumar who has proved to be the highest wicket taker has contributed only 9 runs in the final over of this IPL session on behalf of Hyderabad and thus Bangalore lost all hopes to become third time lucky by winning this IPL competition.
The match was then going beyond Hyderabad’s control and at that moment Ben Cutting, who won the Man of the Match, took two wickets for 35 runs specially by dismissing Gayle. This brought some relief for the Hyderabad. Even Kohli, famous for his four centuries in 2016 IPL, also played well by scoring more than a half century. Finally there was a steady downfall of wickets for RCB as follows: Bipul Sharma sacked the wicket of AB de Villiers, whereas Barinder Sran rolled down Indian test captain MS Dhoni- this was the choking for RCB and the Bangalore team was forced to end up their game at the cost 7 wickets in 20 overs before completing the target of 209.
In contast, Hyderabad has a dignified start with the partnership of Warner and Shikhar Dhawan who added a good score of 63 runs for their team. Meanwhile SRH loses their well-known batsman Moises Henriques, who made a small contribution but later on Warner made this up by making a strong bonding between him and Yuvraj Singh (38 runs). Though Warner got dismissed at the 14th over and Yuvraj at 17th over but Ben Cutting still proved that the bowlers also can score enough runs. Cutting (39 runs and not out) smashed Australian all-rounder Shane Watson with his splendid three sixes at the final overs of the IPL innings and therefore Hyderabad finally felt proud to achieve 52 runs in the last three overs to lead their score in the 200.
The tremendous bowling of Watson, i.e. only 61 runs for no wickets also made the target difficult for Bangalore to achieve. In the end it can be said that RCB after winning 7 out of 8 matches in this IPL, the team became eligible for the final game. Though they tried hard but finally end up with a record of 7 wins out of 9 matches and this is little sad but not that bad. Whereas Sunrisers win this session IPL trophy and the courtesy goes to outstanding performance of David Warner and Yuvraj Singh and also the greatest contribution of undeniable 52 runs in the last 3 overs from Ben Cutting.