10.26pm Well... got any plans for the rest of the evening? Still sunny in London so I'm off to give the dog a bonus walk... he'll be delighted, a diehard SRH fan is born!
A reminder of where that leaves the tournament standings... Sunrisers are back in the mood after a mid-tournament blip, and looking on course for a play-off berth thanks to that net-run rate boost. As for Lucknow, they need some luck now...
Thanks for joining us, that was remarkable viewing! From Miller, Ashish and Sudeep, good night!
Travis Head is the player of the match: A lot of fun, Abhi and I have had good partnerships. It was nice to get it done. Very very good fun. [What's changed] Just concentrating harder, trying to get into good positions. We got ahead of the rate and thought it was a great opportunity to maximise that. [Some of his shots vs spin] Something I have been working on with spin, something I have been working hard on. It will be a big part in the Caribbean. Nice to get 360 and get to the parts of the ground I have not been to. Dan and Pat have asked me to play that way. We want to maximise the powerplay. It is not going to work every time but we want to go for it. [On Abhishek] Beautiful for him to get a score. He missed out in the last few. His spin game is something else. We complement each other so well. [NRR being a factor?] We didn't think about it till the timeout. We have got ahead of the rate tonight which is good. [On the surface] Pick it up and take it everywhere. Nice to win at home. The crowd was exceptional tonight. A little break and we get into the last two. We start again, chasing has been tougher, but nice to get a win tonight.
Pat Cummins: [Changed the pitch midway?] Maybe Trav and Abhi did. [Openers] I just let them go. Two guys who are very positive about the game. It's hard to have some answers as a bowler, they have been fantastic. [On Head] He doesn't surprise me anymore. He has always been the guy who hits to tough areas. Might not be very conventional but gets the job done. [On Abhishek] Just an incredible player of spin but also pace. With only two fielders out, it is really tough to bowl to him. Real exuberance of youth. [What's changed with batters this year?] Just the par scores have gone up. When the wicket is really good, it is tough to come up against batters who are red-hot. [Expected that kind of birthday present?] Not to that extent. Super confident, we love playing here. To win none down and win like that was great.
Abhishek Sharma: "Thanks to the management for the faith they've shown in me, the environment is clear for the batters so I went to enjoy myself. All the credit to Travis, the way he starts, first two or three balls goes to the boundaries. So I just react to the ball. The bowlers told us it's getting better, me and Travis were saying it wasn't doing much, and they were short [in runs] so that was a plus-point. The hard work I put before the tournament is showing... it's going really well."
Impressive honesty from a shellshocked LSG captain, KL Rahul: "I'm lost for words. We've watched that batting on TV but that was unreal. Everything was hitting the middle of the bat, kudos to their skill, they've worked very hard on their six-hitting. They didn't give a chance to see what the wicket was playing like, it didn't change much, but that mindset and freedom to tee off from ball one... the only way to stop them was wickets in the powerplay and we didn't do that.
"Once you're on the losing side, always question marks but we thought it was a good decision to put runs on the board. Ayush and Nicholas fought well to put 166 on the board, but if we'd got 250 it seemed like they'd get it."
10.16pm Incredible scenes. Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma have demolished this chase in barely 45 minutes. An extraordinary 148 of those runs came in the space of 30 boundary balls, 16 fours and 14 sixes. It's a bruising display from the most sensational batting line-up of this tournament. And the middle-order didn't get a look-in!
END OF OVER:9 | 14 Runs | SRH: 157/0 (9 runs required from 11 overs, RR: 17.44, RRR: 0.81)
- Abhishek Sharma68 (26b)
- Travis Head86 (28b)
- Naveen-ul-Haq2-0-37-0
- Ravi Bishnoi2-0-34-0
Shankar: "With all due respect, Pat Cummins did promise "fireworks" during his interview as a loosing captain last match. "
This won't now be the final over...
Hruturaj: "Looks like someone slipped the Sunrisers Hyderabad a cheat sheet from the old EA Cricket game! I mean, are they playing with a secret controller combo or what? hitting boundaries as if they've got a cheat code for unlimited sixes! Someone needs to check their game settings"
Siva: "Nervous CSK fan calculating how much will be SRH's NRR"
This could be the final over... no really...