Slower balls and Abhishek's fireworks help Sunrisers boss CSK

Sunrisers Hyderabad sussed out the conditions quicker than Chennai Super Kings on a black-soil surface and cruised to their second successive win at home. In the absence of Mustafizur Rahman, who had returned to Bangladesh to sort out his US visa for the upcoming T20 World Cup, and Matheesha Pathirana, who is nursing a niggle, a depleted CSK side slid to their second successive defeat on the road.

Last week, Hyderabad had rolled out a red-soil pitch that produced a 277 for 3 vs 246 for 5 contest. Friday's pitch was a whole lot slower and Sunrisers' seamers used it to their advantage by bowling one cutter after another into it. After Pat Cummins and Co limited CSK to 165 for 5, Sunrisers smashed 78 for 1 in just the powerplay, with Abhishek Sharma clattering 37 of those runs, off just 12 balls.

CSK had scored 30 runs fewer in their powerplay and their batting machine was shut down in the slog overs too.

Sunrisers eventually completed their chase with six wickets in hand and nearly two overs to spare, Aiden Markram doing the heavy lifting with a 36-ball 50.

Rachin Ravindra was dismissed by Bhuvneshwar Kumar for 12 off nine balls in the fourth over. Ruturaj Gaikwad got off to a start, but Shahbaz Ahmed, the left-arm fingerspinner, had him swiping a catch to long-on for 26 off 21 balls.

Ajinkya Rahane hit Cummins and Bhuvneshwar over the top for boundaries in the powerplay, but he struggled to get the ball away once it became softer and the field was spread out in the middle overs.

Shivam Dube, though, got cracking immediately against spin. He launched the third ball he faced, from Shahbaz, for six and scored 25 off his first ten balls, from Shahbaz and legspinner Mayank Markande.

Dube also lined up T Natarajan, who was returning from injury, for back-to-back sixes before Cummins stopped him on 45 off 24 balls. The Sunrisers captain hid a slower short ball away from Dube's swinging arc and had him popping a catch to backward point.

CSK could score only 50 runs in their last seven overs. Cummins, Natarajan and Unadkat kept taking pace off the ball. CSK's power-hitters failed to manufacture pace for themselves on the night.

Rahane was undone by a 105kph slower delivery while Mitchell fell to an on-pace Natarajan delivery that stopped in the pitch. Ravindra Jadeja's down-the-track swatted four off a 111kph cutter from Unadkat was only an aberration.

The decibel levels soared when MS Dhoni came out to bat at No.7, ahead of Moeen Ali, with just three balls left in CSK's innings. But even he could manage only one off two balls.

With the target in front of them and the knowledge that the pitch would become even slower later in the night, Sunrisers maximised the powerplay.

According to ESPNcricinfo's logs, Sunrisers attempted to hit 16 balls in the powerplay to the boundary. CSK, on the other hand, had looked to hit only eight balls to the boundary during that phase.

Travis Head stayed leg-side of the ball and cracked Deepak Chahar and Tushar Deshpande through the off side. He finished with 31 off 24 balls. He could have been dismissed on 0 in the very first over had Moeen not dropped him at slip.

Abhishek faced only half as many balls as Head did, but produced a bigger impact, pumping 37 at a strike rate of 308.33. Twenty-seven of those runs came in the first over from left-arm seamer Mukesh Choudhary, who bowled like someone who was playing his first competitive game since December 2022.

After Head and Abhishek departed, Markram controlled the chase with a half-century. Moeen trapped Markram (50) and Shahbaz (18) lbw with the old ball, but it was too late for CSK. Sunrisers had already inflicted irreparable damage in the powerplay.