With every match of Indian Premier League (IPL) 2022, we see unpredictability and excitement. That is exactly how Sunrisers Hyderabad went against Gujarat Titans today at the DY Patil Sports Academy in Navi Mumbai on 11th April. 

Gujarat Titans remained as the only undefeated team in this season up until today where SRH beat them by 8 wickets giving them their first taste of defeat. Although Hyderabad was off to a comparatively slow start, they gained their footing and sooner than we expected GT was defeated. 

In the match 21 of the tournament, SRH won the toss and captain Kane Williamson chose to bowl first. The first runs for SRH were scored by Matthew Wade with a hit of four while Bhuvneshwar Kumar bowled at a wide in the next delivery which gave four extra runs behind the keeper. Gujarat Titans actually started quite strong after scoring 17 runs from the 1st over from Kumar, a total of 12 runs came as extra. GT added seven runs in total from the over and took their score to 24/0.  Gill was dismissed in the second ball of the third over, bowled by Kumar as Rahul Tipathi took an impressive leaping catch at covers to send him back and the former scored seven runs from nine balls during this time. Gujarat scored six runs in total after losing Gill’s wicket as they took the score to 30/1.

Washington Sundar was brought to bowl the fourth over. GT ended the over at 36/1 and managed to score six runs from the 5th over of the first innings that was bowled by Marco Jansen. GT reduced to 42/1 while Natarajan dismissed B Sai Sudharsan as he scored 11 individual runs before getting dismissed by pacer Natarajan and skipper Williamson catched mid-off. Hardik Pandya slammed a four in the last ball of the 6th over to get off the mark and GT stood at 51/2 after six overs. 

Umran Malik started his turn with bowling in the eighth over with an aggressive bouncer, hitting Hardik’s helmet although Panday sent following two deliveries to excellent boundaries as a response. Despite that strong response Umran still gained over them as Wade got declared lbw out during the final ball of the over but that didn’t stop Hardik Pandya from completing his century of sixes in the IPL. He proceeded to hit another massive six off the fourth ball during ninth over of the innings with Aiden Markram bowling and took the tally of six to a 100. 

Gujarat was at 80/3 at the halfway mark, Pandya and Miller took singles and doubles from the 10th over of the first innings. Titans scored 102 runs with a loss of three wickets at the end of 13 overs. At the end of 13.4 GT stood on 105/4 after Miller was dismissed by Marco Jansen.

The game appeared to be in favor of Gujarat yet again after setting a target of 163 runs to chase for SunRisers Hyderabad but they were out of their usual opening pair and by the end of 1 over the score stood to a mere 4/0. They made a slow start as even after three overs they had just seven runs, yet they managed 42 runs for no loss during the powerplay. Abhishek Sharma scored 24 runs off 20 deliveries while captain Kane batted at 18 runs off 16 deliveries. 

Soon SRH were in control of the game making GT desperate for a wicket as they scored 58 runs for a loss of no wicket after 8 overs. Chasing the target of 163, SRH quickly picked pace and by the end of 15 overs they scored 116 runs for a loss of one wicket and required just 47 runs for winning the last five overs. Needless to say Hyderabad captain Williamson showed us a beautiful form while smashing a glorious fifty against current table-toppers Gujarat Titans. At the end of 17 overs, SRH scored 135/2 with a mere requirement of 28 runs to win off the last 3 overs and soon enough they just needed one more run to win off the final over. 

And so they did! They turned the game around with a sudden change in form and proved everyone who thought Gujarat will stay undefeated wrong. This keeps getting interesting with every match played and let’s just say everyone is loving the adrenaline of unpredictability!