It was a breathtaking display of six-hitting in yesterday’s matchup between the Royal Challengers Bengaluru and the Sunrisers Hyderabad at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium. The visitors SRH managed to shatter the record for the highest innings total of IPL history for the second time this season as the century from Travis Head and fifty from Heinrich Klaasen along with supporting knocks from other batters helped them set a mammoth target of 288 runs.
Speaking on Star Sports, the former Australian captain, Aaron Finch reflecting on the game, highlighted the fact that the fixture was going to be a matchup based on power hitting that the typical batsmanship.
“It was never going to be a game where you talk about batsmanship. It’s a game where you talk about who hit the most sixes and that was the difference,” Finch commented.
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“They (RCB) had to start at 14 (runs per over). And if you have one bad over it goes to 16. SRH were getting lucky in the first powerplay and they needed those sixes and Travis Head was the difference there.
“Head started off well, his intent to get the ball rolling and then a courageous move to keep Klaasen at No. 3 and say we need to keep going, we have a deep batting line-up and we are going to put the bowlers to the sword here,” added Finch.
Klaasen Promoted to Number 3
Following the century knock by Travis Head, RCB got his wicket thanks to Lockie Ferguson’s bowling. However, an interesting move made by the visitors was sending the dangerous Heinrich Klaasen up next instead of the usual Aiden Markram. This proved to be beneficial for the side as they were able to keep up the scoring rate with Klaasen scoring a quickfire fifty.
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“A lot of times teams think that Klaasen has so much power to the back end, let’s hold him back. Like (RCB’s) Glenn Maxwell at times, you don’t want to expose him right now because if he gets out, then we’ve got to rebuild. Teams don’t think like that anymore,” said the former Aussie international.
DK Nailing the Finisher Role
Despite RCB coming out of the game as the losing side, one bright spot for the team has been the form of Dinesh Karthik. The wicketkeeper-batter has been in fine touch with the bat and has been arguably one of the best finishers in the tournament. Against SRH he ended up scoring 83 runs off just 35 deliveries to save face.
Finch also appreciated the knock and credited the experience and his preparation for his recent performance. He commented, ”Well, once you’ve got 20-25 years of experience behind you, and you’ve got that bulk of balls you’ve hit throughout your whole career since you were five years old, you don’t lose that ability to bat”.
“So, I think, it works in their favour because they train specifically for that role which they play for their team. They don’t over-train, they aren’t trying to improve on their skills or they aren’t trying to improvise anymore, they just train specifically,” Finch added.
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The Victorian cricketer added that players like Karthik are examples for others preparing to be specific about their roles.
“That should be a lesson for players around the world, that you have to be really specific with your preparation and how you go about it. You can hit as many balls as you want, if you walk out to the middle with a clouded mind or are not fresh, you’re going to find it hard no matter how well you’re playing,” Finch concluded.
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