Captain Pat Cummins was all praise for Sunrisers Hyderabad after they beat Rajasthan Royals by 36 runs in Qualifier 2 to book their place in the 2024 Indian Premier League final where they will be up against Kolkata Knight Riders at MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai this Sunday.
SRH posted 175/9 and restricted RR to 139/7 on Friday night to give themselves a chance to avenge their defeat by KKR in the first qualifier earlier this week.
IPL 2024 Qualifier 2: Sunrisers Hyderabad vs Rajasthan Royals – HIGHLIGHTS
“The boys have been fantastic all season. There’s a great vibe in the squad as you can see and the final was the goal at the start of the season and we made it,” Cummins said after the win.
Put into bat, the 2016 champions could not quite accelerate in the final overs but managed to post what then looked a competitive total. Trent Boult rattled SRH with his three-wicket burst before Travis Head (34) and Rahul Tripathi (37) steadied the innings.
Heinrich Klaasen struck a breezy 50 down the order but the late flourish Hyderabad expected did not materialise.
Yashasvi Jaiswal (42) led Rajasthan’s robust reply but their top order could not quite capitalise on it. Dhruv Jurel smashed 56 off 35 balls but he did not get enough support from the other end. Allrounder Shahbaz Ahmed led SRH’s tidy bowling with figures of 3/23 while part-timer Abhishek Sharma also impressed claiming figures of 2/24.
“We knew our strength was our batting and we wouldn’t underestimate the experience we have in this squad, it’s a dream having Bhuvi (Bhuvneshwar Kumar), Nattu (T Natarajan) and (Jaydev) Unadkat, makes my job easy,” Cummins said.
When asked about whose decision it was to bring in Shahbaz as the impact sub, Cummins quipped: “Dan Vettori, left-arm orthodox and wanted as many left-arm orthodox as possible.”
As for Abhishek’s bowling, he said, “That was a surprise, tried to stick one out of him with a couple of right-handers and he bowled beautifully and those two won it with their bowling in the middle overs. 170 was a tough chase and had we got a couple of wickets we knew we had a chance.”
Cummins credited the backroom staff and everyone associated with SRH for making it the final.
“I will never pretend to work out the pitch and conditions ever, different every week. It is for the whole franchise, probably 60 or 70 of them who put their heart and soul into this and hopefully one more left,” Cummins said.
(With inputs from Agencies)
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