Twitter Reactions: Manish Pandey and Vijay Shankar's serene batting leads SRH to a clinical win over RR

Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) have stayed alive in the Indian Premier League (IPL) with a commanding win over Rajasthan Royals (RR). Manish Pandey finally clicked for the Orange Army as he launched a counter-attack which surprised the opposition bowlers and there was no looking back in the chase since then. The credit of the win should also go to the SRH bowlers who restricted the Royals to a below-par total after winning the toss.

After being invited to bat first, RR lost their first wicket via a run-out as Robin Uthappa ran for a non-existent run and Jason Holder affected a direct hit. Ben Stokes and Sanju Samson then added 56 runs together but the partnership had no pace to it. The former once again looked rusty with the bat and crawled his way to a 32-ball 30 while Samson played a few eye-catching strokes for his 26-ball 36.

But both of them got out with the score reading 86 and this is where the Royals lost the momentum in the innings. Jos Buttler and Steve Smith rotated the strike for some time, however, the England wicket-keeper never looked comfortable in the middle. Steve Smith also couldn’t up the ante and got out to the ball in the slot for the fifth time in the tournament.

Jason Holder, playing his first game, bowled superbly and ended up picking three wickets after conceding only 33 runs. Riyan Parag and Jofra Archer played a few shots in the end to somehow propel RR to 154 runs for the loss of 8 wickets in their 20 overs.

Manish Pandey and Shankar shine for SRH

Chasing 155, SRH suffered from the word go thanks to Jofra Archer. The England pacer spit venom with each of his deliveries as the Test length to David Warner worked in his favour yet again. Steve Smith stationed a second slip and Ben Stokes didn’t make a mistake in what seemed like a repeat of the Ashes 2019 dismissal. In the next over, Archer disturbed Johnny Bairstow’s timber to leave SRH struggling at 16/2 in the third over.

But little did they know that Manish Pandey was going to take on the bowling from the other end. The Karnataka lad took full toll of the likes of Kartik Tyagi and Ben Stokes to gain confidence and didn’t look back since then. Even after the powerplay, Pandey made the bowling extremely ineffective attacking the leg-spinners Shreyas Gopal and Rahul Tewatia. The same duo looked unplayable against CSK in the previous game.

At the other end, Vijay Shankar played second fiddle and took his time to get in. At one stage, he had scored only 10 runs off 18 balls but then he recovered well and most importantly, didn’t throw away his wicket. Rather he was the one who took on Archer in the final over of this spell which was the final nail in the coffin for the Royals.

The duo of Shankar and Pandey added an unbeaten 140 for the third wicket and stunned the opposition to finish the game in the 19th over itself. While the latter, Man of the Match, smashed 83 off just 47 balls with four fours and eight sixes, Shankar remained not-out on 52 off 51 with six fours to his name as SRH stay alive in the tournament and most importantly, have climbed to the fifth position in the points table.

Here’s how Twitter reacted: