Hyderabad: Skipper Ishan Kishan blazed away to a scintillating 44-ball 91 before a late charge by Nitish Reddy and Salil Arora lifted Sunrisers Hyderabad to 216 for six against Rajasthan Royals in their Indian Premier League match here on Monday.
SRH skipper Kishan looked in sublime touch during his stay in the middle, hitting eight fours and six sixes while sharing 88 runs with Heinrich Klaasen (40 off 26 balls).
Towards the end, Reddy smashed a 13-ball 28 and Salil Arora remained not out on 24 off 13 balls to prop up SRH.
At the start of SRH innings, Abhishek Sharma looked to go for a big shot on the first ball and danced down the wicket, only to manage a slice off a Jofra Archer (2/37 in 4 overs) delivery for Ravi Bishnoi to complete a neat catch in the deep.
Kishan flicked Archer over short fine leg for a four and then deposited one into the stands over deep mid wicket for a six.
In the next over, Kishan cleared third man for a maximum against Nandre Burger. He then whacked Sandeep Sharma over his head for a big six and followed that up with a four off Tushar Deshpande through the midwicket region.
Even as Kishan found the boundaries with ease, Travis Head was struggling to get going and his stay came to an end when RR skipper Riyan Parag had him caught in the deep by Donovan Ferreira for a rusty 18-ball 18. It was a bold move by Parag to bring himself in right after the powerplay, and it paid dividends.
Unperturbed by Head’s dismissal, Kishan went about his task with absolute clarity and reached his 50 in 30 balls, with a huge six over deep midwicket off leg-spinner Bishnoi.
Thanks to the flurry of boundaries by Kishan, SRH’s 100 was up in 10.3 overs with Deshpande leaking 21 runs in that over.
Klaasen lofted Bishnoi over long-on for a six, following it up with a four off Archer.
Kishan then collected three successive boundaries off Archer to move to 91, even as the lights went off briefly inside the stadium.
Going for one too many, Kishan miscued an attempted pull and Sandeep held on to the ball off his own bowling despite a collision with wicketkeeper Dhruv Jurel.
