Shikhar Dhawan played a lone hand in Punjab’s innings with the bat against the Sunrisers Hyderabad. He ended up one short of a hundred and remained unbeaten on 99 in just 66 balls. While other batters failed to score any runs, Shikhar Dhawan played with ease and supreme control. With Mohit Rathee, Dhawan put created the best 10-wicket partnership in IPL history, scoring 55 runs together. Rathee amazingly just played two balls.
Dhawan and Harsha Bhogle during the post match interview
Despite his team losing, Dhawan received the Player of the Match (POTM) award following the game. After PBKS’ victory over Rajasthan Royals (RR), Dhawan made fun of Bhogle for a tweet, stating, “I hope you will be happy with my strike rate now.” Dhawan added while beaming broadly. Bhogle replied “That was in a completely different situation,” as they both smiled at each other.
Earlier during the match against Rajasthan Royals, Harsha Bhogale had criticized Dhawan for playing slowly.
“Shikhar Dhawan’s innings will raise, should raise, the question of whether you can have an anchor batter, especially in these conditions. You can appear to have increased your strike rate by the end, but the 30 balls at run-a-ball can hurt,” Bhogle had tweeted earlier this week.
Speaking of the game, SRH recorded their first victory of the year, while Punjab Kings suffered their first loss of the year and their first loss while Dhawan was captain. Rahul Tripathi’s incredible unbeaten 74 in 48 balls enabled the 2016 champions to cross the finish line with 17 balls to spare. With a 21-ball 37, Aiden Markram also maintained his perfect record at the wicket. On his SRH debut earlier, Mayank Markande produced a remarkable spell in which he took four wickets while only giving only 15 runs.
Shikhar Dhawan is the current winner of the orange cap after scoring 225 runs in three games.
Sunrisers Hyderabad badly needed this victory to open their account in the tournament.
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