Hyderabad, April 14 (IANS) Debutant pacers Praful Hinge and Sakib Hussain announced themselves on the grand stage by picking eight wickets collectively as Sunrisers Hyderabad ended IPL 2026 table topper Rajasthan Royals winning juggernaut with a thumping 53-run win at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium on Monday.
On a pitch where the odd ball was stopping, captain Ishan Kishan hammered eight fours and six sixes in his blistering 44-ball 91 as SRH posted a towering 216/6. Anything full and wide was crashed through the off side via Kishan’s lightning hands, while short balls were dealt with authoritative pulls and whips for the SRH captain to bring up his 19th IPL fifty.
But that effort was overshadowed by a scintillating spell from Hinge, who was named to debut against Punjab Kings last week, but was later pipped by Jaydev Unadkat as the impact player. In a script that felt like a fairytale coming true, Nagpur-based Hinge became the first bowler in IPL history to claim a three-wicket haul in the opening over.
He broke the back of RR’s mighty top order, including dismissing Vaibhav Sooryavanshi for a duck, to end up with 4-34. Hussain, hailing from Gopalganj in Bihar, provided the clinical finish and remained unflappable to pick 4-24, as RR were bowled out for 159 in 19 overs.
SRH’s gamble of blooding two debutants coming in place of experienced campaigners Unadkat and Harshal Patel proved to be a masterstroke. The victory is SRH’s second in five games and catapults them to fourth spot on the points table.
On the very first ball of his spell, Hinge did what the likes of Jasprit Bumrah and Josh Hazlewood hadn’t managed to do this season: dismiss Sooryavanshi cheaply. Sooryavanshi’s eyes lit up on seeing the short ball and went for an expansive pull, but the top-edge was caught by keeper Salil Arora, leaving Hinge and SRH jubilant.
It was the start of a sensational spell for Hinge – on the very next ball, he had Dhruv Jurel chopping on to his stumps, before Lhuan-dre Pretorius flicked straight to long leg. From the other end, fellow debutant pacer Sakib Hossain got his first IPL scalp as Yashasvi Jaiswal upper-cut a short ball with extra bounce to deep backward point.
The nightmare continued for RR, as Hinge removed skipper Riyan Parag with a lovely outswinger, which he edged to slip, as the inaugural champions lost five scalps even before the third over was completed.
With the game’s result rendered a foregone conclusion, Ravindra Jadeja and Donovan Ferreira steadied RR’s ship with an aim to avoid having a huge dent on the net run rate. With the pair taking RR past 49, it meant they avoided the ignominy of the lowest score in the IPL.
The duo brought up the fifty of their stand off 35 balls, with Ferreira being lighting quick to pounce on anything loose from spinners Shivang Kumar and Harsh Dubey and sent them over the boundary ropes to bring up his maiden IPL half-century off just 31 deliveries.
But the 118-run stand, the highest for a sixth wicket for RR, was broken when Sakib castled Ferreira with a slower ball, while Jadeja nicked behind off Eshan Malinga. More delight came for Sakib when he dismissed Jofra Archer and Ravi Bishnoi with consecutive slower while Malinga had Tushar Deshpande holing out to extra-cover and close a thumping win for SRH.
Long before the two debutants unleashed carnage, Archer silenced the sell-out Uppal crowd by dismissing Abhishek Sharma on the very first delivery, as he gave a thick edge to third man. It was Archer’s fourth first-ball wicket in the IPL, while Abhishek bagged his seventh duck in T20s this year.
But Archer’s second over burst his bubble as Kishan whipped him for four, before pulling a bouncer for six and launching Sandeep Sharma down the ground. Nandre Burger nearly dismissed Travis Head twice in the fourth over – a nip-backer took an inside edge for four, while a mistimed loft just evaded Archer.
But a rusty Head holed out to long-on off Riyan Parag just after SRH’s fifty was raised in the power-play. Kishan marched forward to bring his fifty in 30 balls with a monstrous slog sweep off Ravi Bishnoi and brought up SRH’s hundred by smoking Tushar Deshpande for six.
Kishan then smashed three boundaries off Deshpande via a wristy flick and a brace of slices, as 21 runs came off the 11th over and the fifty of his partnership with Heinrich Klaasen arrived in just 26 deliveries. Kishan continued to tear into Archer, carving him through backward point, long-on, and deep mid-wicket for three fours.
Following a floodlight failure break, Kishan fell nine runs short of his century, miscuing a pull off Sandeep to Jurel, who survived a collision with the pacer, while Klaasen chipped to extra cover off Archer for 40.
Nitish Reddy continued the boundary-hitting spree, pulling Deshpande for six before launching Sandeep for three maximums in his cameo of 28. Four boundaries from Arora, including a six over long-off to go past 200, ensured the hosts finished with a strong total before Hinge and Hussain stole the show with their brilliance.
Brief Scores: Sunrisers Hyderabad 216/6 in 20 overs (Ishan Kishan 91, Heinrich Klaasen 40; Jofra Archer 2-37, Riyan Parag 1-5) beat Rajasthan Royals 159 in 19 overs (Donovan Ferreira 69, Ravindra Jadeja 45; Sakib Hussain 4-24, Praful Hinge 4-34) by 57 runs
–IANS
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