At the post-match presentation, Pat Cummins stated, “That was Vettori’s choice, left-arm orthodox, and wanted as many left-arm orthodox as possible.”
In Friday, May 24, at Chepauk, Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) defeated Rajasthan Royals (RR) by a margin of 36 runs to earn a spot in the IPL 2024 final. The Pat Cummins-led team advanced to the finals and will take against the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) on May 26 after putting on a masterful all-around effort.
SRH struggled to get going after being asked to bat first, surrendering cheap wickets to Aiden Markram and Abhishek Sharma. But after 20 overs, they were up to 175/9 because to major blows from Travis Head (34), Heinrich Klaasen (50), and Rahul Tripathi (37 off 15 balls).
The chase looked doable, but SRH’s bowling attack performed admirably. On a slow Chepauk surface, Captain Cummins made superb use of his spin resources. With a final stat line of 3/23, Cummins disclosed that head coach Daniel Vettori’s decision to insert Shahbaz Ahmed as the game-changing player was the reason the Orange Army won.
We are aware that batting is our strongest suit, and we value our experience: Pat Cummins
The 23-year-old all-rounder Abhishek Sharma, who contributed two wickets despite having a difficult day at bat, was also commended by Cummins.
“It was unexpected; we thought we could get one over on Abhishek with a couple of right-handers, but he bowled beautifully, and those two bowled their way to victory in the middle overs.” We would not undervalue the experience in this team, even though we understood that our hitting was our strongest suit. Having Bhuvi, Nattu, and Unadkat makes my job easy; it’s a dream,” Cummins continued.
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The pair of spinners exploited RR’s batting, taking five crucial wickets between them. Dhruv Jurel hit 56 runs, yet the Royals still lost a lot of runs. The captain of SRH acknowledged his happiness with his team’s overall performance, which allowed them to advance to the final.
“This season, the boys have been outstanding. As you can see, the team is in a wonderful mood. Reaching the final was our season’s first objective, and we succeeded in doing so. 170 was a difficult target to pursue, but if we had taken a few wickets, we knew we had a chance,” he said.