The 17th match of the 2014 Indian Premier League pitted Chennai Super Kings against Sunrisers Hyderabad. Till now, Chennai has been a dominant team in the tournament and it continued in the same vein against Hyderabad that has not found its feet in the tournament so far. It was expected that Chennai would perhaps again be victorious and that is what happened in the end. On April 27, 2014 at the Sharjah Cricket Stadium, CSK were able to best their opponents, SRH, by 5 wickets. Even though the result looked a bit close, in reality it was not so – it was only a late flurry of wickets that created excitement.
Team composition: Super Kings went in with the same team that won the last game against Mumbai Indians. Sunrisers made one change to the team that won against Delhi – they brought in Ishant Sharma for Naman Ojha.
Batting: Hyderabad won the toss and opted to bat first. However, with the exception of Finch who top scored with 44 from 45 balls, no other batsman made a significant score that could get them to a decent total.
The Chennai chase was anchored by Dwayne Smith who blasted 66 from 46 balls and Brendon McCullum who kept him company with 40 from 33 balls. Their opening stand of 85 basically killed off the match and even when some wickets fell later on in the innings they were able to complete the win.
Bowling: For Chennai Super Kings, Mohit Sharma was again the best bowler with a controlled and penetrative spell of 2 for 27. Hilfenhaus picked up 2 for 32 in 4 overs and Dwayne Smith got 1 for 11 from a couple of overs. Ashwin was highly economical and Jadeja and Ishwar Pandey also bowled economically.
For Sunrisers Hyderabad, Bhuvneshwar Kumar got 2 for 23 and Ishant Sharma claimed 2 for 37 in his 4 overs. Karn Sharma picked up 1 for 35 from his 4 overs and Steyn gave away only 20 runs in his 4 overs.
Where do the teams go from here?
Chennai once again produced the sort of complete performance that they are known for and now look set for another shot at the title. Hyderabad, on the other hand, have once again suffered for not getting the right players on board. If Sammy has to play as a batting allrounder then perhaps there are players such as Moises Henriques sitting in the bench – perhaps now he needs to be provided a chance as well. Also, Karn Sharma needs to be dropped for the time being and Parvez Rasool needs to be given a chance. Similarly it would perhaps better to find the room to accommodate cricketers like Naman Ojha and Irfan Pathan in the team.
