Twitter Reactions: Wriddhiman Saha and David Warner's opening assault propels SRH to 219

The Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) faced the Delhi Capitals (DC) in a must-win game in the ongoing Indian Premier League (IPL) on Tuesday. The Orange Army took a bold decision to drop Jonny Bairstow from the XI and included Kane Williamson in the line-up while Wriddhiman Saha also made it to the team and he opened the innings with David Warner, the birthday boy.

The new opening duo walked out to bat for SRH and made their intentions clear from the word go. It was Saha who played his shots first and from the fourth over, once he got his eyes in, Warner literally plundered the likes of Ravi Ashwin and Anrich Nortje. But what followed in the sixth over was least expected. Kagiso Rabada, the purple cap holder, was taken apart by the Australian opener churning out 22 runs off his over.

The SRH skipper celebrated his birthday with a 25-ball fifty and helped the team reach 77/0 in the powerplay, the highest score after six overs this season. Warner and Saha completed a century partnership as well with runs coming easily only for the off-spinner Ashwin to finally fox the former. DC got their first breakthrough in the 10th over of the innings but even then, the run-flow didn’t come down.

Wriddhiman Saha smashes 87 runs

Rather, the run-rate skyrocketed with Saha throwing his bat literally at everything. Not that he was lucky with edges, but the shots were of pure class from the wicket-keeper batsman. Manish Pandey was a mere spectator during the 63-run stand for the second wicket which came off just 29 balls. In the process, Saha also got to his half-century off just 26 balls and didn’t stop there.

He took toll of the other DC bowlers as well and at one stage, looked set to smash a brilliant and well deserved century. However, in quest of adding more runs quickly, Saha got out to Nortje but not before slamming 87 off just 45 deliveries. His innings was laced with 12 fours and a couple of maximums.

The platform was set for Pandey and Kane Williamson then and the former didn’t disappoint. Though runs didn’t come at an expected pace with both the set the openers getting out SRH managed to add 49 runs in off their last 33 deliveries after Saha got out. Pandey remained unbeaten on 44 off 31 balls while Williamson managed to score 11* off 10 as SRH eventually posted a mammoth total of 219 runs on the board for the loss of two wickets.

Rabada had an extremely bad day at the office and most importantly, his streak of not going wicket-less for 25 consecutive matches was broken. The South African pacer was taken away for 54 runs in his four overs while rest of the Delhi bowlers were expensive too.

Here’s how Twitter reacted: