Head, Abhishek blitzkrieg helps Hyderabad demolish Lucknow by ten wickets
Sunrisers Hyderabad’s Abhishek Sharma and Travis Head celebrate the big win over Lucknow Super Giants. – AFP
Openers Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma smoked half-centuries as Sunrisers Hyderabad crushed Lucknow Super Giants by 10 wickets on Wednesday to boost their play-off hopes in the IPL.
Chasing a modest 166 for victory, Head, who smashed 89, and fellow left-hander Abhishek, who hit 75, tore into the opposition attack to romp home with 10.2 overs to spare at their home in Uppal.
“Lot of fun today. Nice to get this done in 10 overs,” said Head, the Player of the Match. “Abhi and I have had a few partnerships like this.
“(The key as to) just concentrate on getting in good positions, watch the ball hard and try to maximise the powerplay.
“It is important to go 360 in the modern game. The last 12 months, that’s how they wanted me to play in the Aussie team, and that’s what I’ve been told to do here as well,” Head added.
“The crowd was exceptional tonight, that’s what we needed after losing the last two. I haven’t got many things over him, so that’s good to know that I have more runs than David Warner did in his first SRH season.”
Lucknow skipper KL Rahul said he was lost for words’ after the clobbering his team got at the hands of an explosive Head and Abhishek.
“I’m lost for words. We’ve watched that batting on TV but that was unreal,” said Rahul. “Everything was hitting the middle of the bat, kudos to their skill, they’ve worked very hard on their six-hitting.”
Australia’s Head attacked with a flurry of fours and sixes as he reached his fifty in 16 balls and went past 500 runs this season.
Head is now third in the batting chart behind Virat Kohli (542) and Ruturaj Gaikwad (541) with his fourth half-century — he also has a ton — in this edition.
Abhishek joined the charge as he got to his fifty in 19 balls after the pair took Hyderabad to 107 in the first six overs of powerplay, when only two fielders are allowed outside the inner circle.
Hyderabad, who won the IPL in 2016 under David Warner, registered their seventh win in 12 matches to hand a perfect gift to birthday boy and captain Pat Cummins, who turned 31 on Wednesday.
Abhishek hit the winning six as Hyderabad moved to third in the 10-team table with 14 points. Lucknow stay sixth after the bruising loss.
Top four teams will make the play-offs with the final on May 26 in Chennai.
Seam bowler Bhuvneshwar Kumar set up victory with impressive bowling figures of 2-12 in his four overs to restrict Lucknow to 165-4 after they elected to bat first.
Lucknow lost regular wickets until Nicholas Pooran, who hit 48, and Ayush Badoni, who smashed 55, put on an unbeaten stand of 99 in 52 balls to boost the team total.
But the score proved too little against a team which posted record totals of 277 and 287 in this high-scoring edition of the T20 tournament.
167 for 0 (Head 89*, Abhishek 75*)
165 for 4 (Badoni 55*, Pooran 48*, Bhuvneshwar 2-12) by ten wickets
Travis Head | Player of the Match: