Sunrisers Hyderabad vs Otago Volts: Q6 - Match Report

In the final league match of the Karbonn Smart CLT20 2013 Qualifiers, the Otago Volts handed favourites Sunrisers Hyderabad a five-wicket defeat at the PCA Stadium in Mohali. After putting the Sunrisers in to bat, the Volts did well to restrict them to 143 and then chased down the runs in 16.2 overs. The result means the Volts went unbeaten in the Qualifiers and finish at the top of the table, while the Sunrisers were placed second.

Despite being faced with a not too challenging target, the Volts came out aggressive. Openers Neil Broom and Hamish Rutherford got stuck into some wayward bowling from the Sunrisers bowlers and powered their way to 27 in three overs, when the former was caught behind off Dale Steyn. Brendon McCullum walked in at No.3 and did not let the intensity dip; he got off the mark in style, smashing Darren Sammy for a six off the first delivery he faced. Though Rutherford lifted his foot of the pedal, Brendon kept up the scoring rate. 

The Volts captain was given a reprieve when Parthiv Patel missed a regulation stumping with the batsmen way out of his ground. On 26 then, Brendon made the Sunrisers pay for that lapse by scoring 67. He got to his fifty in style by smashing Ishant Sharma some distance into the stands at square-leg and followed it up with another six in the same region. He picked up two more boundaries in the same over to make it 22 from the over. 

For the Sunrisers, Steyn and Amit Mishra were the pick of the bowlers, bowling a total of 21 dot balls (in a combined seven overs) and picking up three wickets between them, while the 9.2 overs bowled by Ishant, Darren Sammy and Karan Sharma cost them 99 runs.

Earlier in the evening, the Volts bowlers bowled tight lines and applied pressure from the very first ball. Shikhar Dhawan survived two close leg-before appeals against Nathan McCullum. And Biplab Samantray – who was promoted to No.3 – survived two appeals against Neil Wagner. Both batsmen could not capitalize on the reprieves and perished soon after; Dhawan holed out to mid-on, while an acrobatic catch by Michael Bracewell at long-on forced Samantray to head back to the dressing room.

At 45/3, the Sunrisers were in a spot of bother. But JP Duminy and Cameron White (playing his first game in the competition), put the innings back on track with a 40-run partnership. They took a cautious approach to rebuilding the innings. Duminy was quick off the blocks, but then settled down to play a very calculated innings. His innings was constructed on singles, with the odd ball finding its way to the fence. Their stand was culled when White hit one from Wagner crisply but straight to Brendon McCullum at extra-cover.

The arrival of Sammy to the crease gave the innings some impetus. Put down on one, Sammy hit Ryan ten Doeschate for two sixes in an over and followed it up with a boundary off Wagner. However, the Volts bowlers corrected their lengths subsequently and only conceded 13 runs off the final two overs. The Sunrisers completed their 20 overs at 143/5, with 85 runs being scored in the second half of the innings. Duminy remained unbeaten on 57 (off 38 balls).

Nathan McCullum and Nick Beard returned the most successful bowlers of the evening picking up two wickets each, while Wagner picked up one wicket.

Trivia: Of the 26 runs Darren Sammy scored on the night, 23 were scored off the 14 deliveries pitched fuller in length. Of the eight deliveries that landed in good length areas or were banged in short, he managed to score only three runs.

Brendon McCullum's 39-ball innings today contained 14 dot balls. That effectively means he scored his 67 runs off 25 deliveries only.

Scorecard

Man of the Match: Nathan McCullum for his incisive bowling display

B McCullum: "We had to rest some of our players because of injury so we wanted to try some new tactics. I am really pleased with how we played today. I think the conditions suited our way of playing. I am happy with the whole team and looking forward to the next stage."

Dhawan: "We tried new things today and it was important to do so. It didn't go our way but of course we are happy to be through. If I had won the toss I would have batted first anyway as I wanted us to experience both setting and chasing before the next round. In this stage all of our batsmen have had hits which is pleasing. Our confidence is high for the forthcoming matches."

source: clt20.com