The orange army started to fade away in the opening game for the Hyderabad side as SRH registered their first loss of the season which will affect them throughout the season because the visiting side – Rajasthan Royals grabbed a win with a huge margin of 72 runs.
SRH was totally devastated in the very first over Rajasthan’s veteran pacer Trent Boult started off the second innings with a double-wicket maiden.
While Abhishek Sharma and Rahul Tripathi departed with a duck score, Mayank Agarwal started his season with a new team with a decent score.
The middle order was completely collapsed thanks to the spinning duo – Ashwin and Chahal. Jason Holder also contributed with an incredible catch and a tough wicket.
Young batter Abdul Samad carried on to play a classical innings but to chase a target of over 200 runs, the strike rate of 100 wouldn’t have worked. SRH also witnessed Umran Malik’s fireworks but one of the expensively bought players – Harry Brook, failed to start his IPL journey positively.
In the first innings –
The pack of lions led by Indian pacer Bhuvneshwar Kumar were confident with their playing XI as they opted to bowl first in their opening game of IPL 2023.
Rajasthan Royals on the other hand stood out to be one of the excellent run-getters today since the start of the innings.
Jos Buttler and Yashasvi Jaiswal initiated the innings where the young Jaiswal looked to take the classical role of smashing boundaries while Jos played as if the England veteran was continuing his last season’s dominance.
Jos Buttler went to hit a quick fifty and advantageous to the franchise – the opening duo managed to score the highest power-play score of RR in the IPL history.
During the power-play Bhuvneshwar Kumar had utilised 4 bowlers, including himself and none of the bowlers managed to keep an economy below 11.
Fazalhaq Farooqi, a young gunner, was backed by Bhuvi’s trust and confidence which aided him to bag the first wicket, breaking RR’s opening partnership.
The wicket didn’t seem to affect the visitors much as Jaiswal went on to hit with dominance. As soon as Jaiswal was departed, it was Samson who took the responsibility to carry the innings and the top 3 batsmen of RR lifted their bats for an incredible fifty.
Paddikal struggled to stay for a longer time while Riyan Parag also became another quick wicket for the franchise.
Shimron Hetmyer concluded a fine innings for RR but it was the top three batsmen who constructed a good perfomance in the initial overs.
Though Rajasthan Royals could have ended with a huge total, considering the franchise were beyond 100 runs in just 9 overs.
SRH will be utterly disappointed to fail to restrict Rajasthan batters as they finally crossed the 200-run mark despite the middle order collapse.
Although SRH played with 6 full-time pacers, considering one of which will be substituted by an impact player – probably a top order batsman, the hosts failed to perform as they expected.