"When MS Dhoni walked out..." - Pat Cummins in awe of CSK legend

In the 18th match of the Indian Premier League 2024 (IPL 2024), Pat Cummins-led Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) hosted the Ruturaj Gaikwad-led Chennai Super Kings (CSK) at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium in Hyderabad on Friday, April 5.

Sunrisers Hyderabad won the toss and opted to bowl first in the match. They missed the services of Mayank Agarwal, who was unwell, and SRH brought in Nitish Reddy and T Natarajan. Chennai Super Kings, meanwhile, made three changes as Moeen Ali, Maheesh Theekshana, and Mukesh Chowdhary were back in the team as Mustafizur Rahman was unavailable and Matheesha Pathirana had a niggle.

Batting first, CSK openers batted cautiously and weren't able to provide their side with a good start. Rachin Ravindra flopped again and was dismissed by Bhuvneshwar Kumar in the 4th over for 12. Ruturaj Gaikwad was also unable to get back to form and was cleaned up for 26. 

Then, Ajinkya Rahane and Shivam Dube batted well with the latter being ultra-aggressive. Together the duo added 65 runs and didn't let SRH take complete control over the match. In the end, Chennai posted 165/5 on the board.

Chasing the target, Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma demolished the CSK bowlers and laid the foundation for a dominant victory in the powerplay itself. At the end of 6 overs, SRH were at 78/1.

Next came in to bat Aiden Markram who did a wonderful job in the middle. The Proteas star attacked from time to time and completed his half-century in 35 balls. Markram wasn't able to finish the match for his team, but SRH didn't face any issues and Heinrich Klaasen and Nitish Reddy did the rest of the job for the team. SRH completed the run-chase in 18.1 overs and they won by 6 wickets.

Shivam was hitting it well against the spin - Pat Cummins

At the post-match presentation ceremony, Pat Cummins said that the track for the SRH vs CSK was quite different and it got slow as the match progressed. Pat Cummins also lauded CSK batter Shivam Dube, who as usual played attacking cricket and smashed 45 runs.

"Different soil. Slowed up a little bit as the game went on. Shivam was hitting it well against the spin. Thought we'll take chance with off-cutters. First thing is always to get the points."

Pat Cummins also admitted that he wouldn't like to bowl to his teammate Abhishek Sharma who batted with a strike rate of 308.33 against CSK. Pat Cummins signed off by talking about the crowd and he stated that the spectators were extremely loud when MS Dhoni walked out to bat. Pat Cummins stated:

"Wouldn't want to be bowling to him (Abhishek) and Trav Head at the top. The crowd was crazy tonight. When MS walked out, it was as loud as I've ever heard."

Former SRH skipper Aiden Markram also spoke at the post-match presentation ceremony and he stated that the conditions weren't easy to bat. He further labeled SRH as a team with a better batting unit than the bowling department. Aiden said:

"Not too bad, not equivalent what it was against Mumbai, as the ball got softer and older, it wasn’t easy, we saw it when we bowled. When we batted, we wanted to attack in the first ten overs and then take it from there. (Whether you are a batting team or a bowling team?) I’m not too sure but I will go with batting (chuckles)."