Hyderabad: The Sunrisers gave an early wake up call to Rajasthan Royals, thumping them by nine wickets in their campaign opener here on Monday night.
Returning to the big league after two years, rusty Royals struggled to find their feet in the face of some sharp bowling by the hosts as they stumbled after being put in to bat. The lowly 125 for 9 they pieced together was shattered by the big bats in Shikhar Dhawan (78 not out — 57b, 13x4, 1x6) and captain Kane Williamson (36 n.o) and their unbroken stand of 121 for the second wicket as the hosts hurtled to victory with 4.1 overs to spare, much to the delight of a raucous crowd at the partisan Rajiv Gandhi International Cricket Stadium painted in orange.
The home team dished out a red hot performance indeed. First their bowlers barely allowed the opposition to breathe. Later, the batsmen blew them to bits.
The Royals’ two biggest buys at the auction — Ben Stokes and Jaydev Unadkat — turned in poor performances. Stokes scored 5 and conceded 21 runs in his two overs while Unadkat’s figures read 3-0-28-1. It did not help that their captain Ajinkya Rahane dropped Dhawan when the batsman was yet to score, in the very first over.
For Sunrisers, Siddharth Kaul and Shakib Al Hasan did the star turn with the ball, returning with splendid figures of 2 for 17 and 2 for 23 respectively in their four overs. Rashid Khan (1 for 23) and Billy Stanlake (1 for 29) were also instrumental in tightening the screws.
Sanju Samson (49) was the only Royals player to make an impression with the bat. Opener D’Arcy Short started with a powerful shot that crashed to the boundary but soon fell short of the crease as he tried to take a run. Williamson did the damage with a direct hit from mid-off.
