Travis Head has surpassed even his personal exceptional brilliance within the 2024 version of the IPL, blasting a match-winning knock which proved the right birthday reward for his captain Pat Cummins.
The Australian lefthander, who’s taking daredevil opening to new heights on this 12 months’s largest IPL slugfest but, smashed an “unreal” 89 not out off simply 30 balls, with eight sixes and eight fours, to assist bludgeon Sunrisers Hyderabad to a lightning-quick win on Cummins’ thirty first birthday.
With his younger Indian teammate Abhishek Sharma teeing off simply as manically on the different finish, with 75no off 28 balls, the pair’s astonishing pyrotechnics ensured Sunrisers chased down Lucknow Super Giants’ 4-165 earlier than even the midway mark of their dizzying innings.
They put collectively an unbeaten 167-run opening partnership off simply 9.4 overs in Hyderabad’s Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium to see off a fairly difficult goal on Wednesday with an astounding 62 balls nonetheless remaining.
Amid all of the carnage, KL Rahul, the Lucknow captain, was left marvelling: “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.”
It would have been extraordinary if the IPL hadn’t witnessed this kind of opening platform from the pair so usually already this season, with captain Cummins saying of Head’s efficiency: “It certainly doesn’t surprise me any more.
“He’s been like this for the previous couple of years. He may not be super-conventional however he is received an ideal eye, hits the center of the bat quite a bit and he is having a beautiful match.”
Looking in the sort of form that will have all Australia’s World Cup opponents concerned, Head cracked 22 off Krishnappa Gowtham’s second over, and then pulverised the fifth over of the innings, bowled by Naveen-ul-Haq, for another 24, to race past his half-century in just 16 balls.
He went past 500 runs for the IPL season, and moved on to 533 runs at an average of 53.30 and a strike-rate of 201.89.
No wonder he was grinning afterwards: “Very, excellent enjoyable.
“The last 12 months being back in the Australian team, that’s how they’ve wanted me to play and I’m not trying to change anything, just trying to maximise that powerplay.
“It’s not going to work on a regular basis however I’m going to attempt to be as constant as I can, give myself one of the best alternative and hopefully do my half for the workforce.”
Head’s daring has helped the 20-over game explore new limits this season. Incredibly, he and 23-year-old Abhishek plundered 107 in just the six-over powerplay alone.
It left Cummins, who’d earlier taken the key wicket of Rahul in his 1-47 and also ran out Krunal Pandya brilliantly with a direct hit, musing a mite ruefully: “It’s troublesome arising with solutions when the batters are operating so sizzling. It looks like it is occurring increasingly usually, sadly.”
But these astonishing ‘Head starts’ are putting his Sunrisers in a good position to make the playoffs, with Hyderabad now third in the table on 14 points and with their net run-rate having been seriously boosted.
For Justin Langer-coached Lucknow, although, for whom Marcus Stoinis fell early for 3, it was an enormous setback as they now lie sixth.
Source: www.perthnow.com.au
