A dominating century from Jos Buttler helps Rajasthan Royals to defeat Sunrisers Hyderabad by 55 runs in IPL 2021 at Arun Jaitley Stadium, New Delhi. The Englishman managed to score 124 runs to help Rajasthan to post a big score of 220 runs against David Warner less Sunrisers Hyderabad on Sunday.
Sunrisers started the innings fairly well with Manish Pandey and Jonny Bairstow stitching an opening stand of 57 runs in the sixth over. The chase started to unravel after powerplay as wickets kept on tumbling at regular intervals. SRH eventually ended with 165 runs on the board at the expense of eight wickets. Mustafizur Rahman and Chris Morris ended up with three wickets each in their spells. Manish Pandey was the top scorer for SRH with 31 runs in 20 deliveries.
Sunrisers Hyderabad got off to a brilliant start after electing to field. They got rid of Yashasvi Jaiswal in the third over and the powerplay overs were relatively quiet on a short ground. Jos Buttler and Sanju Samson decided to see out four overs of Rashid Khan. After the tenth over, Buttler got some sort of flow in his innings.
The English batsman and Samson were given lifelines by SRH fielders, which turned out to be costly misses. Royals went on a rampage in the second half of the innings as Buttler brought up his first century in T-20 cricket. Samson also played some smashing strokes, but it was all Buttler show. Royals managed to score 143 runs in the last ten overs of the game to post a commanding total of 220. Courtesy of fireworks from Buttler, this score was enough to inflict the sixth defeat of IPL 2021 on Sunrisers Hyderabad.
Sunrisers Hyderabad is unlikely to be in the race for the top four after such a demoralising victory. They remain bottom of the table with two points. Meanwhile, Rajasthan Royals move to the fifth position after this huge victory, just two points behind fourth-placed Mumbai Indians.
Scorecard
Rajasthan Royals: 220/4 (Jos Buttler 124(64), Sanju Samson 48(33), Rashid Khan (1/24), Vijay Shankar (1/42))
Sunrisers Hyderabad: 165/8 (Manish Pandey 31(20), Jonny Bairstow 30(21), Mustafizur Rahman (3/20), Chris Morris (3/29))