Category: T20

Sunrisers Hyderabad continued to look like the shadow of their 2024-selves as they suffered their fourth straight defeat of the season – and second at home. The comprehensive seven-wicket win put Gujarat Titans on the opposite end of this spectrum, making it third straight win. On a slow surface where stroke-making was tough, SRH crashed and burned their way to a 150-plus total but were found wanting with the ball once again as Washington Sundar, playing his first game of the season, proved to be an excellent punt at No.4. He and Shubman Gill added 90-runs for the third wicket. Where the match was won In the middle-overs. Washington started GT’s turnaround in the sixth over, after which he and Shubman Gill aced the middle-overs to put the game beyond SRH’s reach. Twice in the day, Pat Cummins tried to single-handedly take his team towards the two points – first with the bat and then the ball in the PowerPlay, only for this GT pair to defy him through the middle phase. The middle-overs difference Parameters SRH GT Score 60/2 82/1 Run-rate 6.67 9.11 4s/6s 5/1 12/0 Sunrisers Hyderabad PowerPlay: Early exit for Travishek again Phase score – 45/2 [RR: 7.50, 4s/6s: 8/0] Sunrisers were greeted with a drier surface at home where hitting through the line was not easy. The hosts learnt it the hard way as they lost both Travis Head – to Siraj in the first over – and Abhishek Sharma – to Siraj again in the fifth. Between the two dismissals, Abhishek managed to get a few boundaries going against an erring Ishant Sharma before Siraj clipped the opener’s wings. Ishan Kishan and Nitish Reddy took the team to 45/2 by the end of the PowerPlay – the team’s second-lowest score in this phase since 2024. Middle-overs: Nitish, Klaasen attempt slow rebuild Phase score – 60/2 [RR: 6.67, 4s/6s: 5/1] The rut went on through this phase too. Kishan couldn’t get on top of a short ball from Prasidh Krishna and hit to backward square leg in the eighth over to fall for 17. In the 11th over, when Nitish played a pre-meditated reverse sweep and sent a Rashid Khan delivery to the third man fence, it was the first four of the SRH innings in 36 deliveries. While Sai Kishore kept it tight from the other end, Nitish and Klaasen targetted Rashid, who has had an ordinary start to the season. Klaasen hit the first six of the innings – in the 13th over off Rashid, as the leggie finished with figures of 0/31 in four overs. Sai Kishore pulled one back from the other end by cleaning up the South African with an arm ball just when he was starting to get going. Death overs: Cummins cameo pushes SRH past 150 Phase score – 47/4 [RR: 9.40, 4s/6s: 6/1] Sai Kishore continued to torment the home side, dismissing Nitish and finishing with exceptional figures of 2 for 24. Siraj then returned to try and deny SRH a late flourish by trapping Aniket Verma leg before and then floored Simarjeet Singh’s leg stump with some reverse swing to finish with figures of 4-17 – a spell that included 17 dot balls. Pat Cummins’s cameo – 22 off 9 – and a 17-run 20th over from Ishant gave SRH bowlers a total (152/8) to work with on a clearly tough pitch for batting. Gujarat Titans PowerPlay: Washington Sundar revives a bad start Phase score – 48/2 [RR: 8.00. 4s/6s: 5/2] A good start from Pat Cummins and Mohammed Shami was sullied in the last over of this phase – from Simarjeet Singh, as Washington went after his short lengths to collect two fours and as many sixes in a 20-run over. Before that, Shami took out Sai Sudharsan for just five and Cummins got the ball to move and had Jos Buttler caught behind for a third ball duck. GT bumped up Washington to No.4 and he delivered right away. Middle-overs: Gill, Washington dwarf the asking rate Phase score – 82/1 [RR: 9.11, 4s/6s: 12/0] The third-wicket pair continued to ride the late PowerPlay momentum to deny SRH a way back into the fixture. None of Cummins’s bowling options could make an impact like he did early on as Gill and Washington comfortably mounted their stand that dragged the match away from the hosts. Leg spinner Zeeshan Ansari bowled three overs of his leg spin for 22 runs but couldn’t break through while the ambidextrous Kamindu Mendis got taken apart for 12 in an over. Cummins came back on in the 11th over in desperate search for a wicket, but was hit for perhaps the shot of the game – a sublime cover drive by Gill. Washington’s excellent knock was brought to an end by a contentious call from the third umpire after Aniket took a diving catch very close to the ground at deep point. Cummins was out of bowling options and turned to Abhishek Sharma’s left-arm spin. But he bowled to the left-handed Sherfane Rutherford, who hit him for four fours in the over, leaving GT with just 23 to get at the death. Death-overs: Gill, Rutherford close out big win Phase score – 23/0 [RR: 13.80, 4s/6s: 3/1] SRH got a change of ball for the death and Ansari returned but Gill hit him to both sides of the ground- a sweep behind square leg and an inside-out hit over extra cover – for two fours. Rutherford then sent one from Cummins out of the ground and followed it up with a four before Gill hit the winning run. Brief Scores: Sunrisers Hyderabad 152/8 (Nitish Reddy 31, Heinrich Klaasen 27, Pat Cummins 22*; Mohammed Siraj 4-17, R Sai Kishore 2-24) lost to Gujarat Titans 153/3 in 16.4 overs (Shubman Gill 61, Washington Sundar 49; Mohammed Shami 2-28) by 7 wickets What next? SRH have five days to reflect on their losing rut before hosting Punjab Kings on April 12. GT head home…

At 65 for 5, Delhi Capitals were in trouble in their first match of IPL 2025 against Lucknow Super Giants. Watching from the sidelines, team mentor Kevin Pietersen was asked in a flash interview if the game was slipping away. The former England captain replied in the negative. He backed Ashutosh Sharma, who’d just walked in, and also picked out Vipraj Nigam, a 20-year-old Lucknow boy in DC’s ranks yet to take the field. Nigam only found out later, after the Capitals had pulled off a stunning win. It has stayed with him. “That was the best part,’ Nigam beams in a chat with Cricbuzz. “To know that someone like him believed in us even before we stepped in, and that we delivered on it, there can’t be a better feeling.” Nigam was living a dream he first saw as an eight-year-old in Barabanki, a town close to the UP capital of Lucknow. The son of a Government teacher and a house wife, Nigam, was enamoured watching Mumbai Indians and Chennai Super Kings clash in the IPL final of 2013. The star-studded line-ups, the dazzling lights, the roaring crowd – they had all captured his imagination. Now in Vizag, he went from being a spectator to becoming the central figure of the spectacle. ‘When you enter the ground, when you’re on the field in the first over, when the crowd is right there, you realise it’s something different. Kuch toh alag hai,’ Nigam says. Mumbai Indians re-entered Nigam’s story last November. They were one of three teams that auditioned him in the lead-up to the mega auction. But ultimately, Delhi Capitals wanted him more, having closely studied what he could offer. A leg-spinner who can hit – it’s a rare combination, and Nigam had it. In a format where versatility is king, the 20-year-old’s ability to turn the ball both ways and clear the ropes made him a prized asset. That’s why the Capitals, despite already having two premier Indian spinners in Kuldeep Yadav and Axar Patel, were eager to bring him in. Interestingly, Nigam’s rise wasn’t built around his leg-spin from the start. He began as a prodigious batter at the Youth Cricket Club in Barabanki. His coach, Sarwar Nawab, pushed him into games above his age group, and Nigam held his own with the bat. He impressed in the inaugural season of the Uttar Pradesh T20 league with his power-hitting, scoring at 165.85 which included plundering 28 runs in a single over for the Lucknow Falcons against the Meerut Mavericks. It was this hitting combined with ability to chip in with a few overs of leg-spin that strengthened his case for a spot in Uttar Pradesh’s Under-19 setup. The real shift came at the National Cricket Academy (NCA), where coaches recognised his potential and pointed out the high demand in India for a leg-spinning all-rounder. That feedback changed everything. Nigam started taking his bowling seriously, but he needed a model to learn from. He found one in Yasir Shah, the wily Pakistan leg-spinner known for his control and sharp turn. Hours were spent in watching and studying how Yasir bowled, as Nigam worked on his new craft. “There was a Test match, West Indies vs Pakistan. I watched the highlights. He had taken 10-11 wickets in that game. The way he used to bowl, I started to bowl leg spin that way. From the start, he was one of the leg spinners who I watched and felt I could bowl like and I felt there were things I could learn from him,” Nigam reveals. Results followed – he had a standout season in the Uttar Pradesh T20 league 2024, finishing with 20 wickets from 11 games as a genuine leg-spinner. On the second day of the mega auction, Nigam was away at the Wankhede stadium in Mumbai with his UP side in the Syed Mushtaq Ali trophy fixture against Himachal Pradesh. His mind was in Jeddah but had to wait until the end of the game to find out if he had any suitors. As he walked back to the dressing room, there was no nervous anticipation, no anxious wait. He fished out his phone, and right at that moment, his name flashed live on the screen. Sold. For the next five to ten minutes, everything was a blur. His mind struggled to process it all. Then came the handshakes and the messages – Rinku Singh, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, and Nitish Rana walked over, offering their congratulations. “The feeling was unlike anything else, it’s imprinted so vividly even now,” Nigam recollects.