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It was enough to provide enough cushion for SRH against brutal power-hitting Phil Salt And Michelle Marsh The skipper’s 112-run partnership for the second wicket off 60 balls threatened to take the game away after skipper Bhuvneshwar Kumar was dismissed for a duck.
It took seven matches to awaken Marsh, who made 63 runs in 39 balls, while Salt justified his selection by scoring 59 runs in 35 balls. While Marsh flexed his Hulk-like muscles to deposit the ball deep into the stands for six times, Salt played well to hit nine fours.
After the departure of the two power-hitters in the 14th over, the Capitals batting was back to their excellent form as SRH spinners Mayank Markande and Abhishek took spells of 2/20 and 1/20, hitting lengths on a drying surface. Used to pull back a little. There was a lot left to be done for Capitals’ in-form batsman Axar Patel, who came in at No.7 with a 26-ball 58 as the Capitals finished with 188/6 and Patel remained unbeaten on 29 off 14.
As Abhishek brought down Capitals new bowlers Ishant Sharma, Anrich Nortje and Mukesh Kumar at one end, inconclusive shot making at the other end meant that SRH were reduced to 109/5 in the 12th over. Marsh took four for 27 with a slow long-haul, while Akshar used all his experience during a poor batting spree by the SRH middle-order.
The dismissals of Mayank Agarwal, Rahul Tripathi, Aiden Markram and Harry Brook have screamed mediocrity in SRH’s batting this season. To their relief, their most consistent batsman Klaasen decided to take the game back to the Capitals bowling attack. To begin with, they downplayed the usefulness of Mukesh Kumar, who had prevented them from winning a low-scoring encounter in the last game in Hyderabad earlier this week.
As soon as Mukesh smashed 24 runs in his second over, he realized how brutal and unforgiving this format can be at this stage. During his onslaught on the Capitals, Klaasen smashed massive sixes over Axar and Nortje. With every screamer that Klaasen wielded with his bat, he took the wind out of the Capitals’ bowling, which has been their saving grace during a poor campaign.
Abhishek himself put all this in front in the innings after his captain Aiden Markram elected to bat first after winning the toss. Abhishek’s unbalanced attack in the powerplay, maintaining his composure while staying inside the line of the ball with the sole intention of clearing the in-field, indicated that SRH were determined to test the Capitals’ subpar batting prowess.
On a pitch that looked bare and flat from afar, the experienced Capitals pacers relied on reducing the pace of the ball further. Even as wickets were falling around him, Abhishek was never able to hold himself back as his innings suggested 12 fours and one hit on the fence. There was no way he was letting the Capitals get back into the game after collecting 62 runs in the powerplay. The Capitals were always playing catch-up from that point on.
Watch IPL 2023: SRH beat DC by 9 runs