Live report - Head, Abhishek, Fraser-McGurk dazzle in unreal sixer fest

What a performance. They have five wins in seven games now, and there's plenty of time left this season for their batters to hoover up more records. For a while today, it looked like they weren't just gunning for 300 but perhaps even 400, and it almost felt anticlimactic that they only made their third-highest total of this season.

But it would have been the highest total in all IPL games if it had happened last season, which just tells you how far SRH have lifted the ceiling for batting teams this year. They've followed it up with an excellent bowling display too, and they've bowled Capitals out for a symbolic 199, with Nitish Kumar Reddy getting Rishabh Pant caught on the hook to finish things off.

T Natarajan has gone at less than a run a ball in this match, and he's picked up three wickets in his final over. All of them have come from attempted yorkers that have landed there or thereabouts, either as low full-tosses or blockhole-ish deliveries that have been hard to get away. He's got a bit of late tail on these balls too. Axar Patel, Anrich Nortje, and Kuldeep Yadav are gone, and Capitals are 199 for 8.

At the eight-over mark, Capitals were 131 for 3, and our Forecaster gave them a 21.23% chance of winning this game, which is incredible given that they're chasing 267.

They've scored 35 runs in the next seven overs (that's five an over), and lost three wickets. The latest to fall is Lalit Yadav, bowled by a full ball from T Natarajan that reverses slightly away from him and hits leg stump as he tries to make room and hit over mid-off or extra-cover.

Natarajan and Pat Cummins have been excellent during this seven-over period, bowling like they'd bowl in the death overs - either going into the wicket, whether it's on-pace or slower balls, or going yorkers or wide outside off stump and away from the batters' hitting arc. Rishabh Pant has also struggled hugely for fluency. Capitals are going nowhere, and this game is done.

He's got so much talent with the bat, as he showed with some of the shots he played today, including that reverse-slapped six off Kuldeep Yadav. And he can bowl brisk fast-medium too, and he can hit the deck and cause problems. He comes on in the 13th over and breaks a partnership between Tristan Stubbs and Rishabh Pant that was struggling to break free.

Reddy hits a hard length, cramps Stubbs on the pull, and gets him caught at midwicket for 10 off 11. The partnership made 19 off 22. In this match.

It's that kind of match. Everyone's hitting everything to the boundary. The wristspinner also goes for plenty, but every now and then bowls a ball that isn't quite what the batter thinks it is. Kuldeep Yadav picked up four for Capitals, and now Mayank Markande has two.

Having already dismissed Fraser-McGurk, he gets Porel now, slipping one wide of off stump when he sees the left-hander charge out of his crease and getting him stumped.

...Abishek can do too.

He's batting on 41 off 21, going at a criminally low strike rate of 195.23 (relatively speaking), but Delhi Capitals are still in this game, kind of.

He maximised his favoured match-up against the left-arm spin of Shahbaz Ahmed in the eighth over:

Abhishek Sharma hit one off 16 balls earlier this season. Travis Head hit one off 16 balls earlier today. Now Jake Fraser-McGurk has hit one off 15 balls. His six-hitting has been devastatingly clean. The smoothest, most unfettered bat-swing you'll ever see. Having hit Mayank Markande for three sixes in the seventh over, though, he miscues one into the night sky and is caught by Heinrich Klaasen running towards point.

He goes for 65 off 18 balls, and Capitals are 109 for 3 in seven overs.

It's the joint second-highest-scoring powerplay of the season. Delhi Capitals are going at 14.66 per over. Washington Sundar bowled a 30-run over, Pat Cummins bowled a 20-run over. Jake Fraser McGurk is batting on 46 off 13 balls, and has put on 63 off 24 balls with Abishek Porel.

Unfortunately for Capitals, Sunrisers Hyderabad batted earlier today and smashed the powerplay record for all T20 cricket: 125 for no loss.

Yes, it's a verb now, and Washington Sundar has discovered what it feels like. This young Aussie batter is one of the cleanest strikers of a cricket ball you'll ever see, with a baseballer's manner of addressing the ball and a golfer's swing through its line. He's just done this in the third over of Capitals' chase:

Sampath Bandarupalli: "Washington Sundar's 46 runs are the most conceded by a bowler in a powerplay in the IPL. Previous highest was 45 by Vaibhav Arora earlier this week against RR, when he bowled three overs."

An unusually off-target over from Bhuvneshwar Kumar, starting with three wides down the leg side to David Warner, but it kind of tells you the pressure bowlers are under to minimise width against batters like Warner on pitches like this one.

But Bhuvneshwar ends the over in triumph, dismissing his old captain with a knuckle-ball into the pitch. Warner ends up offering neither a defensive nor attacking response to the ball, and pops it to mid-off where Pat Cummins dives forward to take a good, low catch.

That's the first five balls of Delhi Capitals' chase. SRH began with Washington Sundar, and maybe they had the left-hander match-up in mind when they gave him the new ball. But it was Prithvi Shaw, Capitals' impact sub, whom he came up against, and his first four balls were dispatched surgically through gaps in the infield.

The fifth ball, though, is slower and bowled with a high degree of overspin. Washington decides he may as well try to beat the batter in the air, so what if he goes for more runs in the process. A miscued loft follows, and Shaw is caught in the covers.

Before this season began, the highest powerplay run rate achieved by any team in any season was 9.40, by Rajasthan Royals in 2023.

Four teams have gone quicker than that in IPL 2024 alone. Sunrisers Hyderabad are on top of the pack, and they've gone at a ridiculous 12.40. That's three whole runs per over quicker than the quickest-scoring pre-2024 powerplay team. THREE RUNS.

For a long time, it's felt like teams haven't quite maximised the field restrictions of the first six overs in T20 cricket. Some of that has to do with the fact that the new ball can move around, and quite considerably sometimes, but a lot of it has also had to do with teams not quite working out how hard they can go given the batting resources at their disposal. In IPL 2024, SRH have pushed the powerplay envelope as far as it's ever been pushed in this format's history upto this point.

That would have been the highest IPL total of all time before this season. It's only the third-highest total made by this one team this season, however. IPL 2024 has witnessed a paradigm shift in run-scoring, and Sunrisers Hyderabad have been at the forefront of it.

Today it looked like they could end up with a lot, lot more. They were a ridiculous 125 for no loss at the end of the powerplay, but the fields spread and Delhi Capitals' spinners brought a semblance of normalcy to proceedings. Shahbaz Ahmed finished with a superb, unbeaten 59 off 29 balls, but because of what came before, it may have seemed almost prosaic to the viewer.

Sunrisers hit 22 sixes in all, equalling their own record from the match against RCB in which they scored 287.

A six for Abdul Samad and two for Shahbaz Ahmed off Khaleel Ahmed in the 19th over, and SRH bring up 250 for the third time this season. Incredible stuff. Surrey are the only other team to have achieved three 250-plus T20 totals. They did it once in 2018, and twice in 2023.

Nitish Kumar Reddy goes for 37 off 27, an innings of terrific shots - including a reverse-slapped six off Kuldeep earlier in this 17th over - but without the all-out attacking intent of SRH's top four, but you could understand why given his team probably wanted him and Shahbaz Ahmed to ensure they got into or close to the last four overs to give Abdul Samad and Pat Cummins their ideal entry points.

Nitish falls to a Kuldeep wrong'un that's not short enough to pull, not full enough to loft with a straight bat, and too close to the body to free his arms against. A proper T20 ball from a man who's finished with incredible figures given the circumstances it began in: 4-0-55-4.

That's the partnership between Nitish Kumar Reddy and Shahbaz Ahmed so far. Bo-ring!

They've batted very well so far, it must be said. Nitish, especially, has caught the eye, with one lovely high-elbow drive for four off Khaleel Ahmed and a wristy whip for six off a shortish ball from Axar.

SRH still have seven overs remaining, with Abdul Samad and Pat Cummins to come. ESPNcricinfo's forecaster predicts they'll finish with 256. At the end of the sixth over, the forecast was for 284 even if it felt like 400 was under threat.

Because Delhi Capitals' spinners are really pegging SRH back. Heinrich Klaasen is one of the best pullers against spin, and he often pulls spinners for six even when they haven't landed particularly short, so you'd say the shot was on, but the skiddy Axar Patel manages to skid one through his shot and bowl him.

Axar concedes just four runs in the over, which means he's now bowled 12 balls without conceding a boundary, and he's taken out SRH's most dangerous spin hitter. I have been too busy typing these posts, in all honesty, to be able to explain how he's done this.

Kuldeep has 3 for 44 in three overs now, and he's dismissed Head, who hasn't had too much strike in the last few overs. Head hit a lot of pulls over midwicket and mid-on against spin when the field was up in the first six overs, but now he doesn't quite get hold of one and there's a man back at long-on to gobble it up. He goes for 89 off 32, and SRH are 154 for 3 in nine overs.

This is why Kuldeep Yadav is so good. Your bowling attack is taking the biggest hammering any T20 bowling attack has taken, pretty much ever, and he gets you two wickets in five balls. But how much of this is down to design, and how much to randomness? It's not the greatest ball Kuldeep has bowled, a wrong'un but shortish and wide and asking to be hit. Markram hits it, but he slaps it straight into the hands of that man Axar at cover.

That seventh over, by the way, goes for just eight runs. The first six all went for 19 or more.

Abhishek had just launched Kuldeep for a straight six off the first non-powerplay ball of the match, but an attempted drive off the next ball ends up as a good diving catch by Axar Patel at short cover. With Sunrisers 131 for 1 in 6.1, they send in Aiden Markram at No. 3.

Not just the IPL powerplay record, but the T20 powerplay record (for matches where we have bbb data). We are six overs into this match, and you're likely to have forgotten the boundaries you watched in the fifth over.

SRH are 125 for no loss in six overs. One twenty five. For no loss. In six overs.

Can they get 300? Actually, can they get 400?

This is how the powerplay unfolded:

In five overs.

I have no words, other than maybe lol. Kuldeep Yadav concedes three sixes to Abhishek Sharma in the fifth over, and I can't say he bowled badly. Last ball is a case in point. Abhishek steps out, finds himself nowhere near the pitch of it, to the extent that the ball is at close to hip height when he meets it. He still wallops it over wide long-on for six.

Here's a stat from Sampath Bandarupalli: "SRH took 4.6 overs to reach the 100-run mark. From the games where we have bbb data, this the fastest any team has reached the 100-run mark in T20 cricket. The previous fastest was off 5.3 overs by South Africa last year."

The unfortunate Lalit Yadav is tasked with bowling two of the first four overs against this rampaging SRH pair. His first over went for 20, and his second has gone for 21. Abhishek Sharma, who began the over batting on eight off two balls, is now batting on 21 off 6.

Remember this RCB-KKR game from 2017, when Sunil Narine and Chris Lynn smacked 105 for 0 in the powerplay? That's the IPL's record total for the first six overs, and it's under severe threat now.

Travis Head. What a player. Sixteen-ball half-century today, and he brings it up with his fourth six of the night, a leg-side whip off a full ball from the returning Anrich Nortje, who might be wishing he had stayed on the Capitals bench after conceding 22 in his first over.

Yup, 22. Every over has been massive, and more massive than the previous one. Sunrisers are 62 for 0. Sixty two for no loss. In three overs. They've broken the record for highest IPL total twice this season. They could do it again tonight. If you're in the crowd at the Kotla, you might be well advised to wear a helmet.

Lalit Yadav's offspin is called upon in the second over, against Sunrisers' two left-handed openers. Their response is to say match-up, schmatch-up, and take 21 off the over, with Head once again the dominant partner and Abhishek putting away a last-ball boundary. The first two balls show just how well Head is seeing the ball: both just a touch short, and he's so quickly onto the back foot to wallop them for big sixes over the leg side.

Travis Head. How do you stop this man? Early signs from the Kotla pitch suggest it will be extremely hard to do that. Khaleel Ahmed doesn't bowl the greatest of first overs, in terms of lengths or lines, but there's no element of anyone needing to get their eye in at all. Head clatters 15 off the first five balls, and Abhishek Sharma puts away a hit-me ball on his pads off the last ball, as Capitals zoom to 19 for no loss in the first over.

Ishant Sharma suffered a back spasm minutes before the toss, so Anrich Nortje, who's had a difficult start to the season, returns to the Capitals attack. Pat Cummins, the Sunrisers captain, says he would have bowled first too. It makes sense - first match of the season at this venue, no one quite knows what to expect, so always better to chase.

David Warner is back for Delhi, and the offspin-bowling allrounder Lalit Yadav returns for his second game of the season. Prithvi Shaw looks likely to come off the bench as an Impact Sub for the chase.

Sunrisers Hyderabad: 1 Travis Head, 2 Abhishek Sharma, 3 Aiden Markram, 4 Heinrich Klaasen (wk), 5 Abdul Samad, 6 Nitish Kumar Reddy, 7 Shahbaz Ahmed, 8 Pat Cummins (capt), 9 Bhuvneshwar Kumar, 10 Mayank Markande, 11 T Natarajan.
Subs: Umran Malik, Anmolpreet Singh, Akash Singh, Glenn Phillips, Washington Sundar.

Delhi Capitals: 1 David Warner, 2 Jake Fraser-McGurk, 3 Abishek Porel, 4 Rishabh Pant (capt & wk), 5 Tristan Stubbs, 6 Axar Patel, 7 Lalit Yadav, 8 Kuldeep Yadav, 9 Anrich Nortje, 10 Khaleel Ahmed, 11 Mukesh Kumar.
Subs: Prithvi Shaw, Shai Hope, Praveen Dubey, Rasikh Salam, Sumit Kumar.

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