IPL 2021 - RR vs SRH - Sanju Samson's 82 goes in vain; Roy, Williamson take SRH home

Sanju Samson's 82 of 57 goes in vain as Kane Williamson and Jason Roy take SRH home.

Sunrisers Hyderabad 167 for 3 (Roy 60, Williamson 51*) beat Rajasthan Royals 164 for 5 (Samson 82, Kaul 2/36) by seven wickets

Sanju Samson becomes new Orange Cap Holder of IPL 2021. (BCCI/IPL)

The partnerships built by Sanju Samson (82) along with Yashasvi Jaiswal (36) and Mahipal Lomror (29) helped Rajasthan Royals (RR) to post a target of 165 runs from 20 overs for the last-seeded Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH).

The 60-run knock from IPL debutant Jason Roy and the partnership between Abhishek Sharma and Kane Williamson helped SRH to their second victory of the 14th edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL).

Sanju Samson shines again for RR, claims Orange Cap

Rajasthan Royals kicked off their innings with a brilliant partnership between Sanju Samson and Yashasvi Jaiswal of 56 runs for the second wicket and a stand of 84 runs for the fourth wicket ensued between Samson and Mahipal Lomror which helped RR to set a target of 165 runs for SRH.

Sanju Samson scored 82 runs from 57 balls which included seven fours and three sixes. Jaiswal and Lomror also scored some important runs to help their captain.

Samson is one of the players who has performed exceedingly well in the IPL but is not able to make it to the national side. He is one of the Indian wicketkeeper batters who has performed very well in most editions of Indian Premier League but is being ignored by the national selectors every year. He has got very few chances to prove himself in T20Is for the Indian national team and has been left out of the T20 World Cup 2021 squad as well.

Samson scored his 15th IPL fifty on Monday. The Rajasthan skipper completed his 3,000 runs in IPL. He has scored 433 runs in 10 innings with a strike rate of 141.96 in IPL 2021 and is currently the Orange Cap holder.

The Hyderabad bowlers were a bit expensive in the first half of the play but they came back with an excellent bowling performance in the second half. Siddharth Kaul took two wickets in the last over and conceded 36 runs, Bhuvneshwar Kumar took one wicket and conceded 28 runs with a maiden over in his spell while Rashid Khan went for 31 runs with one wicket to his name. Sandeep Sharma was smashed for 30 runs in his three overs and he took one wicket.

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Jason Roy, Kane Williamson come to the party

Sunrisers Hyderabad chased down the target of 165 runs in 18.2 overs with seven wickets remaining. The highlight of Sunrisers innings was the performance by IPL debutant Jason Roy and the partnership between the skipper Kane Williamson and the uncapped Indian player Abhishek Sharma.

After a lot of struggle, Kane Williamson played a Kane William'dad' innings. Jason Roy made his debut for the Sunrisers Hyderabad. He replaced the ex-skipper of SRH, David Warner who has performed well in earlier editions but looked grossly out of touch this season. Jason Roy scored a half century on debut. He scored 60 runs from 42 balls which included eight fours and a six.

Did too many bowling options bring in the downfall for RR or was it overconfidence?

Rajasthan Royals surely missed the likes of Kartik Tyagi’s heroics in bowling due to injury but Lomror more than made up for it with a wicket in his 3 overs just costing 22 runs. While Samson's batting was outstanding and his captaincy was a strength in the first 10 overs, his immaturity as a leader showed with some inexplicable bowling changes during the latter half of SRH's innings.

Jaydev Unadkat was left with two overs in the end and Chris Morris who had been high on confidence also did not complete his quota of four overs.

IPL Points Table (©Cricinfo)

Status of the Points table

With this win, Sunrisers Hyderabad got their second win of IPL 2021 but they remain at the bottom of the pile. On the other hand, Rajasthan Royals slipped to the sixth spot with four wins from 10 matches and have a net run rate of -0.369.

On September 28, 2021, a double-header will take place. On one side, Delhi Capitals will be facing the Kolkata Knight Riders in Sharjah in the afternoon and later in the evening, the defending champions but out of sorts Mumbai Indians will be taking on Punjab Kings in Abu Dhabi.

Twitter Reactions as SRH beat RR

Sunrisers Hyderabad beat Rajasthan Royals by seven wickets in 40th match at Dubai. Sunrisers remain at the bottom of the points table and RR slip to sixth position. Sanju Samson 82 off 57 balls went in vain. Kane Williamson (51) and Jason Roy (60) scored fifty by SRH. Fans and some of the former cricket players expressed their excitement via Twitter. Here are some of the finest twitter reaction of SRHvsRR game:

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