Sunrisers Hyderabad suffered another batting malfunction even though Rashid Khan went wicketless again

ESPNcricinfo staff06-Apr-20253:33

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Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) suffered another batting malfunction in IPL 2025, this time on a black-soil surface at home, managing 152 for 8 against Gujarat Titans (GT). At one point, they went 36 balls without a boundary and had to wait until the 13th over for their first six. It was Heinrich Klaasen who hit that six, and in the final over of the innings Pat Cummins (22* off nine balls) cleared the boundary to give their attack something to defend.Rashid Khan went wicketless for a third successive game and after four games this season, he has figures of 1 for 143 in 14 overs. Mohammed Siraj, though, was at his best, especially in the powerplay, and then came back in the end overs to york Aniket Verma, SRH’s last recognised batter, and Impact Player Simarjeet Singh. Hyderabad boy Siraj came away with his career-best T20 figures of 4-0-17-4.Siraj had started SRH’s slide when he dismissed both Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma in the powerplay. In the very first over on the day, he had Head chipping a catch to midwicket for 8 off five balls. Abhishek picked four fours before Siraj had him caught at mid-on in his third over of the powerplay. Abhishek became Siraj’s 100th victim in the IPL and sixth in the powerplay in IPL 2025. No other bowler has more wickets than Siraj in the first six overs this season.R Sai Kishore, the left-arm fingerspinner, then stifled SRH in the middle overs with his control and variety. He cut Klaasen’s innings short on 27 off 19 balls when he knocked him over with a quick fizzer. He went onto have Nitish Reddy holing out for 31 off 34 balls. GT had handed a franchise debut to Washington Sundar but they didn’t even need him with the ball.Captain Cummins then made a sparkling cameo to push SRH past 150. He was the only SRH batter in the top eight to have a strike rate of over 160.