Published: Apr 22, 2019, 10:11 AM (IST)
Edited: Apr 22, 2019, 10:11 AM (IST)
After three losses in a row, last year’s runners-up Sunrisers Hyderabad last week won both their matches to move to fourth place on the IPL 2019 points table.
Central to both wins was their former captain, David Warner, who with two fifties held onto the Orange Cap for most runs in IPL 2019.
On April 17, Sunrisers Hyderabad played defending champions Chennai Super Kings in Hyderabad and beat them by six wickets. A terrific bowling and fielding effort from SRH kept CSK to 132/5 in their 20 overs, and chasing a target of 133 the home team won in the 17th over.
Warner smashed 50 off 24 balls – the fourth-fastest half-century of the season – and then fell to the next ball he faced, but by that time SRH had 66 on the board in just 5.4 overs. He hit ten fours in his half-century, which came at a strike-rate of 200. Since he blasted a 55-ball century three weeks prior, Warner’s strike-rate had dipped to 104.28 and despite scoring two half-centuries in this period he was not his belligerent self.
List of highest run-scorers in Indian Premier League, 2019
This 25-ball 50 was Warner’s fourth fifty-plus score versus CSK and led Sunrisers’ excellent start, with Jonny Bairstow facing only nine balls in the Powerplay.
When Warner departed, the required run-rate for SRH had been brought down to just 4.64 an over. That win over CSK moved SRH up to fifth place on the points table.
On April 21, SRH hosted Kolkata Knight Riders and thrashed them by nine wickets. Chasing 160, they won in 15 overs with Warner scoring 67 off 38 balls.
This took Warner’s run-tally this season to 517 at an average of 73.85 and strike-rate of 148.56. Behind him at second place is Bairstow with 445 at 63.57.
