07 May,2025 08:06 AM IST | Hyderabad | N Jagannath Das
Daniel Vettori
It was Sunrisers Hyderabad's best performance of the season in the bowling and fielding departments, but it came a wee bit too late as heavy showers poured cold water on whatever slender hopes they had of making the Playoffs.
A 60-minute shower on Monday night, immediately after Delhi Capitals finished their batting at 133-7, was enough to rule SRH out of the tournament as both teams had to split points. Last year's runners-up joined Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals in the list of eliminated teams. They stand eighth in the table with seven defeats and three wins besides this rain-abandoned encounter.
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However, for DC, did the rain come as a blessing in disguise. At the toss, DC skipper Axar Patel had said that even if they lose, they don't want to lose by a big margin. But in the end, rain had the last laugh. DC collected a point and have 13 from 11 matches. Their fate hangs in the balance as they now play in-form teams like Punjab Kings, Gujarat Titans and Mumbai Indians in their last three matches.
Hard-hitting batter Ashutosh Sharma, who came in as an Impact Player and bailed out DC with a 26-ball 41, was not sure if the rain had come to their rescue or not. With a puzzled look he said: "I don't know whether the rain helped us or not [with a wry smile]. But every point is crucial at this stage of the tournament, so we are happy we could get one point,'' adding they thought they had put up a competitive score on the wicket. "The target was good enough."
SRH now play for pride in their remaining matches. Coach Daniel Vettori admitted that it was a disappointing season. "We came in with high hopes, but just haven't been consistent enough with our performances. It's frustrating that we couldn't finish it."
With Mohammed Shami, who was a big let-down for SRH, being finally omitted from the playing XI, skipper Pat Cummins bowled the first over for the first time. The Australian pacer (3-19) came up with a fiery spell that rocked the DC top order.
Vettori was happy that his skipper snapped up three wickets at the start of the innings. "Pat [Cummins] is a tremendous new ball bowler. Normally, he plays a bit of a Mr Fix-it role for us in terms of being able to jump all over the Powerplay, the middle and in the death. It was just a nice opportunity to give him the new ball and go at them. He was fantastic. You can see why he's such a dominant Test match bowler."
On SRH's poor season, Vettori felt that this year the conditions [at home] weren't as they expected. "If you look at last year there were a number of high-scoring games here and these surfaces, in particular, have been a little bit different. It has been tricky and hasn't been easy for the batters."
