Fraser-McGurk’s rapid fifty no match for Head led Sunrisers | cricket.com.au

by Admin
April 20, 2024

Travis Head hit 89 as his Sunrisers posted another huge score to see off Delhi despite Jake Fraser-McGurk’s 15-ball half-century

Jake Fraser-McGurk has blasted the Indian Premier League’s equal third-fastest fifty but his rapid knock was overshadowed by a Travis Head gem that helped Sunrisers Hyderabad to another huge total.

Fraser-McGurk’s 15-ball effort was also the equal second quickest T20 half-century by an Australian behind Pat Cummins’ 14 balls in IPL 2022 and level with Dan Christians’ knock for Sydney Sixers in 2020.

He finished with 65 from 18 balls, striking at an eyewatering 361.11 with seven sixes before he holed out off leg-spinner Mayank Markande.

Head has earlier reached his own half-century in 16 balls as he led another blistering batting innings by Cummins’ Sunrisers who posted their third score over 260 for the tournament.

The Australian left-hander deposited the second ball of the match over midwicket for six as he and opening partner Abhishek Sharma slammed 19 runs from the first over of the game on their way to world record six-over Powerplay score of 0-125.

Those 19 runs turned out to be the lowest scoring over of the Powerplay as the next five went for 21, 22, 21, 20 and 22 respectively.

Abhishek then hit the first ball of the seventh for another six but was out the following delivery for 46 off 12 to a ripping catch by Axar Patel at cover, which would have given him the fastest IPL fifty of all-time had it reached the boundary.

At that point Head was 84 off 26 balls having hit 11 fours and six sixes during the Powerplay but he could only manage singles from his next five deliveries before picking out long on to fall for 89 (32) as the Sunrisers innings slowed somewhat.

The innings took Head to second on this season’s IPL run-scoring list with 324 at 54 behind Virat Kohli (361) following his century in the Sunrisers’ previous match against Kohli’s Royal Challengers Bengaluru.

From there the Sunrisers’ run-rate slowed from an almost unfathomable 20.83 runs per over to 13.3 by the end of the innings as Heinrich Klaasen (15 off 8) and Nitish Kumar Reddy (37 off 27) fell after fast starts.

Shahbaz Ahmed hit five sixes on his way to an unbeaten 59 from 29 balls to close out the innings as the Sunrisers posted 7-266 after being sent in by Delhi Capitals at Arun Jaitley Stadium.

It was Hyderabad’s second consecutive score over 260 and followed their IPL-record total of 3-287 in their previous match against RCB.

Captain Cummins said post-match part of him was “excited and elated” by the huge totals, while the other part was worried that he had to bowl on the same surface.

“Another great game of cricket,” he said.

“You saw there wasn’t much in the Powerplay for both sets of bowlers. After that it slowed down, but overall, a great batting wicket.”

Head added: “When you’re in good form, (you’re) just trying to keep it simple and react to the ball.

“Things have been coming together after a couple of years (with) hard work. But also, I’ve been playing a lot of T20s (and it’s) nice to be batting high up in the batting order too.”

Fraser-McGurk, who hit a half-century on IPL debut two games prior, did his best to keep the Capitals in the contest but his side lost regular wickets throughout the chase to stall their momentum.

Prithvi Shaw (16 off 5) and David Warner (1 off 3) both fell cheaply as Delhi slipped to 2-25 after two overs, already 15 runs behind what the Sunrisers were at the same point in their innings.

After failing to connect with his first two balls faced, Fraser-McGurk hit 12 of his next 15 to or over the boundary, including a four and six from his three balls faced off Cummins.

He then hit three consecutive sixes off Markande in the seventh over as he hauled his side back into the contest but was out attempting a fourth as he sliced a full and wide delivery high into the off-side with wicketkeeper Klaasen completing the catch at point.

At that stage Delhi were 3-109 and only slightly behind the required rate of 15.57 but after Abishek Porel fell for 42 off 22 two overs later, the innings faltered.

Delhi skipper Rishabh Pant also hit 44 but it came off 35 balls as the Sunrisers tightened the screws to dismiss the Capitals for 199 with the first ball of the last over to win by 67 runs.

One-Test Indian left-armer Thangarasu Natarajan defied the batter friendly conditions to claim 4-19 from his four overs, while Cummins returned a more than respectable 0-35 from his four.

Earlier, India left-arm wrist spinner Kuldeep Yadav took four wickets of his own for Delhi, but they cost him 13.75 runs per over.

Hyderabad have now won four games on the bounce to sit second in the IPL 2024 standings, two points behind Rajasthan Royals.