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Sooryavanshi ton in vain as Sunrisers Hyderabad raze a 229 chase
Twelve days after defeating Rajasthan Royals [RR] by nullifying Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, Sunrisers Hyderabad [SRH] defeated them in spite of an astonishing innings from the boy wonder.
Sooryavanshi scored his second IPL hundred, getting there off just 36 balls, and struck a six every third ball before his dismissal. The rest of RR’s batting, however, struggled around him. Sooryavanshi made 103 off 37 balls, and his colleagues and extras combined to score 125 off 83.
It wasn’t clear at the innings break whether 228 for 6 would be enough for RR, on a day when Punjab Kings (PBKS) had broken the T20 record by chasing down 265 with an over to spare. It wasn’t, and this was because SRH were able to fire at both ends where RR only went from one. A red-hot Jofra Archer dismissed Travis Head in the first over, but Abhishek Sharma and Ishan Kishan quickly took over, enjoying their share of luck in a match where the two teams combined to put down seven chances (there had been nine drops in the Delhi Capitals-PBKS game).
Individually, neither Abhishek nor Kishan matched Sooryavanshi for pace of scoring. Together, though, they comfortably outscored Sooryavanshi and Dhruv Jurel, who had put on RR’s biggest partnership – 112 off 62 balls for the second wicket. Abhishek and Kishan put on 132 off just 55, and when Donovan Ferreira broke their partnership, SRH needed just nine an over in the last 10. They got home with an over and a half to spare.
Praful Hinge had made an eye-catching debut in the reverse fixture, taking a match-winning four-for that began with the wicket of Sooryavanshi. On this day, Sooryavanshi had his revenge. He faced five balls of Hinge in the first over of the match, after SRH had chosen to bowl. First a dot – a play and miss. And then 6, 6, 6, 6. Hinge began short and kept getting gradually fuller, and Sooryavanshi put everything away: a pull, a whip over backward square leg, and two clean, flowing hits down the ground.
It took until the last ball of the second over for Sooryavanshi to get on strike again, and now he was facing Pat Cummins – playing his first competitive game since the Adelaide Ashes Test in December – for the first time in his life. Cummins bowled a good short ball, angling across the left-hander and climbing, but Sooryavanshi picked the length in a flash and swatted it for another six, well in front of square. He had faced six balls and hit five sixes.
Sooryavanshi was never going to keep up that rate of scoring, but he didn’t slow down by much at all. He finished the powerplay on 51 off 16, along the way getting to a 15-ball half-century for the third time this season, and getting to 1000 runs in fewer balls than anyone in T20 history. He had also enjoyed one major slice of luck, Aniket Verma putting him down off Eshan Malinga on the leg-side boundary, when he was on 32.
Sooryavanshi kept hitting boundaries at an absurd rate even when the fields spread, showing he could innovate to disrupt bowlers’ plans: a reverse-swat over backward point, for instance, forced left-arm wristspinner Shivang Kumar into a fuller, straighter follow-up that he launched over wide long-on for six.
Another attempt at innovation – he opened up and shaped to reverse-scoop – led to his wicket off a Sakib Hussain yorker in the 14th over, but he had hit his Bihar team-mate for 6, 4, 6 before that to bring up his century. It was only his second-quickest century in the IPL – his maiden hundred, against Gujarat Titans last year, had come off 35 balls.
He now has the second and third quickest centuries in the history of the IPL. He’s only 15.
While the Sooryavanshi whirlwind raged at one end, SRH’s bowlers found life significantly easier at the other. Jurel struggled for fluency early on, and despite a late flurry of boundaries only managed 51 off 35. Riyan Parag, enduring a miserable season, was out for 7 of 9, bowled by a terrific Cummins yorker with late tail.
Cummins and Eshan Malinga used the yorker brilliantly at the back end of the innings, and only Ferreira (33 off 16) managed to break free of SRH’s post-Sooryavanshi shackles.
Archer produced a chance with the first ball of SRH’s innings, his pace, bounce, constricting line, and angle from over the wicket producing a nervy jab and edge from Travis Head. Jurel, diving left, put it down.
There were two plays and misses in the next three balls (one was adjudged wide), and then a bit of width that Head carved for six. But just when Jurel may have wondered how costly his miss would be, Archer bowled another Test-match jaffa, squaring Head up, and this time the edge settled nicely in Jurel’s gloves.
The drama wasn’t done yet; the last ball of the over was a searing bouncer, and Kishan, taking his eyes off the ball while looking to fend it away, edged it for six over fine leg.
That proved to be a bit of a sign in the early exchanges. There was luck early on for Abhishek too; an edge over slip in the second over off Nandre Burger, and two missed chances – one from Shimron Hetmyer who lost the ball in its flight, one from Ravindra Jadeja who put down a sitter – in the fourth and fifth overs.
Either side of those chances, the two left-handers peppered the boundary, particularly by piercing or going over the off-side ring when the bowlers offered width. Some of this was down to mis-executed plans: Tushar Deshpande, for instance, looked to hide the ball away from their hitting arc with protection square and behind square on the off side, but he didn’t quite find the line control on the day.
The presence of two left-handers also meant RR went with the part-time offspin of Parag and Ferreira before either of their frontline spinners. By the time Ravi Bishnoi and Jadeja came on in the 11th and 12th overs, the match was nearly done, and they ended up bowling just an over each. Heinrich Klaasen (29 off 24) and Nitish Kumar Reddy (36 off 18) took SRH to the doorstep of their target before both fell late in the chase.
Brief scores:
Sunrisers Hyderabad 229 for 5 in 18.3 overs (Abhishek Sharma 57, Ishan Kishan 74, Heinrich Klassen 29, Nitish Kumar Reddy 36; Jofra Archer 2-34, Brijesh Sharma 2-44,Donovan Ferreira 1-14) beat Rajasthan Royals 228 for 6 in 20 overs (Yashasvi Jaiswal 10, Vaibhav Sooryavanshi 103, Dhruv Jurel 51, Donovan Ferreira 33, Shimron Hetmyer 11; Praful Hinge 1-49, Pat Cummins 1-27, Eshan Malinga 2-38, Sakib Hussain 1-62, Nitish Kumar Reddy 1-20) by five wickets
[Cricinfo]
“Obviously, it depends on the team management… what we plan to do in this match. That is a different thing. But I think it is a very thin line between trying to give somebody an opportunity and you being unfair to some other player.”
Seattle Orcas had won just one of their first three games in MLC 2026, but it all came together beautifully for them against Washington Freedom on Thursday. The 88-run win was enough for them to jump straight to No. 2 on the points table, behind the unbeaten Los Angeles Knight Riders.
Orcas got the sort of start they wanted, reaching 59 for no loss after the powerplay even as they slowed down to get to 79 for 2 at the halfway stage. But then they really turned in on thanks to Shimron Hetmyer and Marcus Stoinis. Matthew Breetzke had given the innings some momentum in partnership with Hetmyer, but when Breetzke got out in the 15th over, Orcas were solid without being spectacular at 138 for 3. Around 200 was expected, but not the 227 they got.
And that was down to Stoinis, their captain. Hetmyer was already on 44 off 20 balls and got to his half-century off 24 deliveries soon after, but Stoinis almost caught up with Hetmyer in a blaze of sixes. He hit five of them in one over, the 17th, bowled by medium pacer Ian Holland. From 4 off six balls, Stoinis was on 34 off 12, and though there was another big one in the next over, bowled by Marco Jansen, Stoinis fell for 42 off 16 deliveries the next ball.
Hetmyer, meanwhile, left it till the last over, which started with Orcas on 208 for 5. Jack Edwards was the bowler, and Hetmyer went 6, 6, 6 off the first three balls. That was enough to take Orcas to a huge total, and for Hetmyer to finish on 79 not out off 33 balls.
With that many runs to chase down, Freedom needed a solid start. Instead, they were 42 for 5 after the powerplay, having lost most of the big guns: Steven Smith, Mitchell Owen, Andries Gous, Glenn Maxwell and Edwards. Jasdeep Singh had four of the five wickets, including three in his second over – the fifth of the innings – where he got Gous first ball, Maxwell off the next, and Edwards off the fifth. Smith was already in the bag from his first over, and Jasdeep came back in the 14th to complete his five-for with Jansen’s wicket.
At one point, it looked like the record for the biggest victory margin (by runs) in MLC – currently 123 from when San Francisco Unicorns beat Freedom last season – would be broken. That it wasn’t was thanks to runs from Freedom’s Nos. 8, 9 and 10. Amila Aponso top-scored for Freedom with 31 not out from 13 balls from No. 10, and the men before him, Holland and Jansen, contributed 46 from 39 deliveries between them.
The latest defeat, their second in three games, left Freedom at the bottom of the table.
Scores:
Seattle Orcas 227 for 6 in 20 overs (Tim Seifert 37, Shayan Jahangir22, matthew Breetzket 32, Shimron Hetmyer 79*, Marcus Stoinis 42, Ali Sheikh 11; Marco Jansen 3-33, jack Edwards 1-56, Ian Holland 2-49) beat Washington Freedom 139 in 16.2 overs (Andries Gous 18.Obus Pienaar 10, Marco Jansen 20, Ian Holland 26, Amila Aponso 31*; Marcus Stoinis 1-20, Jasdeep Singh 5-24, ottneil Baartman 1-11, Cameron Gannon 2-16, Harmeet Singh 1-40) by 88 runs
[Cricinfo]
Over 40 persons have been injured (some critically) as two buses one travelling from Galle to Ampara and the other from Tangalle to Matara crashed head on at Talalla Matara this morning.
The injured have been admitted to the Matara General Hospital and Bathhegama District Hospital.
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