Playing With Fire :SRH bowl out Gujarat Titans, Rahul Tripathi breaks drought!
Fierce Fight, Big Finish: SRH Postpone GT Thriller as Sunrisers Clinch IPL Title
Raipur, October 22, 2024: An eerie stillness fell over the rectory building in Raipur tonight. Inside, crucial heads were gathered, contemplating a frantic turnaround. Rain threatened heavily outside the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium as the Gujarat Titans roared back, fighting tooth and nail against a finish line they seemed set to reach for the IPL title. But while fatigue and the weather battle mounted beyond, the clear skies above India played in favor of the Sunrisers Hyderabad somewhere else.
It was almost cruel timing, really. With rain likely to dictate play for the final two balls of the match – easily the most tense conclusion imaginable – Sunrisers Hyderabad weren’t the ones confined to the dressing room. They were the ones already popping corks long before the match had ended. You could almost hear the relief in their beers even before the final over was bowled.
Captain Abhishek Sharma, his dark circle blackening on the Chinnaswamy turf after a season-long campaign of sleepless nights and stiff opposition, walked back reservedly after Saturday night’s glorious party. Across the Middle and West, the celebrations have continued, a jagged edge to the tales beneath the surface. There had been nobody to celebrate with yesterday: a 9-run loss bowled off, an emotional tribute Tuesday ruined by the harsh reality, then a final day many felt would leave them chasing shadows. The wait seemed endless.
But captaincy is a strange thing, and close games resolve into unintimidable partnerships. Hard work is undone by a single wicket. The IPL never tips the scales, maybe that’s the point. Here was an innings partnership that felt like steps down a familiar journey. From 145/2, the Gujarat Titans piled their point-scoring high on the pitch, building with utter confidence, harking back slightly to the three-way fightback through their title challenge. Hard hitting, targeted, buying time with the method, their middle overs functioned like clockwork.
But somewhere between the middle and death overs, something subtle shifted. The ploy that usually works so well for the Titans drew intensity, glare and then a strange kind of irritation. Pressure returned, played in earnest for maybe the first time uniting the SRH bowlers. Tiring, yes, but the Sunday heroes dusted themselves down again and again. No surrender from the Sunrisers. Any gamble or departure from the norm by the Titans landed awfully for them, as it often did, playing with fire and getting burned.
At the start, always a gamble: Motthiyan Ramachandran’s death over policies left rare cut running to openers Shubman Gill and Virat Kohli. Then Nishant Kumar. Then Fred Klaassen in the middle overs, an expensive inclusion. Joe Mazzieri, familiar order, bought heavily by the Titans. If the way Rahul Tripathi finishes titles is any guide, they were left to chase the impossible. Lucky Ganguly curated, warming the SRH camp over the previous two days with whispers and sharp eye, waiting for the right moment.
The clinching moment arrived early in the powerplay overture on Day 5. Srinath Jagdish bowled the perfect over for the Titans, attracting an inside-out drive from Kohli and a bizarre, beamer-inducing bouncer from Makers in their own powerplay. Then Srinath came back with the goods, peppered runs before the final two balls. Match won.
In the end, it was a hero’s stroll for Rahul Tripathi. He repelled the double-prize hunt, Sherlock-hound-like, his calm blanket over a youthful, occasionally porous Titans middle order. Against a bowling attack lacking its ME pic, Tripathi steamrolled them. Before he even walked in, 90 was expected in M. Chinnaswamy. They got it with five balls to spare. A few continued runs sealed the thrilling chase, leaving only the IPL points table and ceremony for the only night.
In the end, it was Tripathi who ended it. The last ball of the last over, bowled successively by Shayan Aujla and Tanvir Yousuf, spoke silence. A four and a single, and the chase was on. Rahul Tripathi, born with a will to win and bat at MCBs, marched towards the boundary, cutting off the chase on the final delivery. Voltage runs flowed as he sealed it, while a boisterous SRH crowd celebrated the seventh title.
In Mumbai the night before, even as Aiden Markram cooked up a spellbinder, the tides already turned in Hyderabad. Nowhere felt more distinct than the colossal symmetry of this match within this stadium. The Gujarat Titans chased down 95 runs to win on the fifth match day, then imploded against a pitch that had supposedly invited it. The appointed final day of the IPL, the ‘Super Over 2.0’ day, is always charged. Today, it bled with contrast, bringing the curtain down on a campaign dominated on paper by the Gujarat. Not quite in reality. Not for Rahul Tripathi and Sunrisers Hyderabad.
It’s all such familiar whirlwind for the champions: hoists, long beers, broken dinners, special moments. The final over, guaranteed for a second IPL triumph, will be the making of many. Dropped catches from the luxurious finish line, that sort of thing. He is Rahul Tripathi #88: chasing his second IPL title.
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