NEW DELHI: Travis Head is currently on the loose, hopping cities and murdering bowling attacks. At the Arun Jaitley Stadium on Saturday evening, it was almost spine-chillingly cold-blooded about the way he tossed his bat, opened his gloves before the ball had even hit the cover boundary off Mukesh Kumar on the last ball of the powerplay.
By then, he brought up his half-century inside the first three overs of the match, killed the spirit of the Delhi Capitals bowling attack along with fellow opener Abhishek Sharma and helped Sunrisers Hyderabad score a jaw-dropping 125 runs in the first six overs.
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The tempo set by Head’s 32-ball 89 and Abhishek’s 12-ball 46 was enough for SRH to put up a daunting score of 266/7 with a little help of Shahbaz Ahmed‘s unbeaten 29-ball 59 in the second half of the innings. This is the third time in the tournament that they have breached the 250-run mark. And expectedly, that was enough for SRH to register another emphatic 67-run win.
In reply, Jack Fraser-McGurk tried to match the muscle game with a frenzied 18-ball 65 along with Abhishek Porel’s 22-ball 42. But the pressure of the score posted by SRH took toll once McGurk’s onslaught ended 109/3 in the seventh over. Capitals were bowled out rather tamely with captain Rishabh Pant, coming in at No. 6 and struggling to find timing, scoring 44 off 35 balls. The difference was some sharp and accurate bowling by SRH captain Pat Cummins (0/35) and T Natarajan’s smart spell of 4/19.
Head has been ruling the stadiums in India since the ODI World Cup in Oct-Nov. He broke Indian hearts in the World Cup final in Ahmedabad but he has clearly won them back with his marauding form in the ongoing IPL. The packed Delhi stadium was thrilled to bits to watch him on a rampage and even cheered for the visiting SRH team.
On the match eve, Capitals coach Ricky Ponting had claimed that his team was ready for a shootout. Head went about gunning down one Capitals bowler at a time right from the second ball of the game when he nonchalantly slapped Khaleel Ahmed over the mid-wicket boundary for the six. That echo off the bat clearly rattled the Capitals bowling attack. Off-spinner Lalit Yadav, trusted to slow down the pace against two left-handers, was given the second over and he ended up leaking 41 off his two overs.
Be it Anrich Nortje, Khaleel, Mukesh or Lalit-all of them were guilty of pitching the ball too short on a pitch which resembled a concrete strip. Abhishek was mostly a bystander to the carnage off Head’s bat but he took the onus of taking down Capitals’ trump card Kuldeep Yadav. Nimble on his foot, he charged down to Kuldeep to smack three sixes.
Capitals captain Rishabh Pant may have thought that his team had finally got on track with good bowling performances in the two preceding games. Little did he know that his attack was running into a rampaging SRH team with Head and Abhishek their hands on the wheel and foot on the gas. For the first 30 minutes, it seemed like the duo were chipping sixes-12 between them.
The onslaught was so freakish that Kuldeep’s comeback with four wickets–including the wickets of Head, Abhishek and Markram-and Axar Patel’s 1/29 seemed like an anomaly in the game. These two spinners have been the saving grace for the Capitals through the tournament. Yet, their effort could do beyond containing Sunrisers to 108 runs in the last 10 overs of the innings.