SRH finally managed a consolation win over Rajasthan Royals in a low key match today . Both teams made a few changes and the biggest of them all was the dropping of David Warner by SRH .
Warner ,who was the captain at the start of this season , suffered a form crisis and was dropped during the 1st leg . However he was in the starting lineup after IPL resumption but two back to back failures has caused him to be dropped again and today he actually was not in the stadium .
Coming to the match, batting first Rajasthan Royals lost Evin Lewis (6) early caught at deep square leg off Bhuvneshwar off a pull short . However an impressive Yashasvi Jaiswal had a 58 run partnership with his captain Sanju Samson in just 7 overs . Jaiswal played some lovely cuts and pull shots till at 36 he played on to Sandeep Sharma in trying to hoist another ball for a six .
Livingstone (4) came out to bat with a lot of expectations but his shot off Rashid went straight to Samad.
Finally Mahipal Lomror provided Samson the stand he needed to take Rajasthan to a stronger position . Samson was playing wonderful shots and was striking in front of crease down the ground .
However, the last 3 overs bowled by SRH proved to be economical and only 18 runs came as Bhuvneshwar and Holder were excellent with their lines . Samson finally perished for a superb 82 off 57 balls while Lomror played a run a ball 29 notout to take the Royals to 164/5 .
For SRH , Siddharth Kaul took 2/36 , Bhuvneshwar took 1/28 and Rashid Khan took 1/31
In reply , SRH was off to a fabulous start with Jason Roy , who replaced Warner and Saha batted aggressively putting on 57 within powerplay before Saha (18) after playing some glorious shots was stumped off Lomror. Roy carried on unruffled and had another fine 57 run stand with Kane Williamson. Roy was motoring along smoothly and was playing dazzling shots but with his score at 60 off 42 balls he tickled a legside ball from Sakaria to the keeper at 114/2.
Though Priyam Garg was out soon after , Abhisek Sharma (21*) and Kane Williamson (51*) shared a steady partnership which took SRH easily across the finishing line to win by 3 wickets with 9 balls to spare .
Roy was the man of the match for his 60.
This was SRH’s 2nd win this season. For Rajasthan ,this loss will become crucial now as they failed to win back to back games. Teams like KKR, Mumbai Indians , RCB, & Punjab Kings will be happy with SRH win today.
scores
RR 164/5 ( Samson 82)
SRH 167/3 ( Roy 60, Williamson 51*)