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Sunrisers Hyderabad have shown great faith in emerging talents and two of the best examples are Abdul Samad and Umran Malik. Both youngsters hail from the hilly state of Jammu and Kashmir and were two players retained by the franchise for ₹4 crore each ahead of the IPL 2021 mega auction.
Both Umran and Samad were uncapped then, however, Umran has since gone onto to represent the Indian team in the white ball format following his success with SRH in the IPL. While Samad still waits on the fringes, the all-rounder well showcased his potential in the IPL encounter between Sunrisers and Rajasthan Royals in Jaipur.
With 17 required to win in the final over, Samad completed the task for his side in the final delivery, during which he also got two lucky reprieves. It all started with Rajasthan’s Impact Substitute Obed McCoy putting down a sitter in the first ball as Samad ran two. The batter then whacked Sandeep Sharma for a maximum, flat and straight enough to tantalise Joe Root make a desperate attempt to save the ball but fails to prevent it from bouncing past the boundary ropes.
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Samad then completed another double but Sandeep brought things under control as the over proceeded. With five required in the final delivery, Sandeep failed to get the desired connection and handed a simple catch to the long-off fielder but it was signalled no, thus reducing the task to four off one ball. Samad then closed the proceedings with another maximum a win which kept SRH alive in the play-off race.
Following the win, Sunrisers batting coach Hemang Badani said Samad redeemed himself with the match-winning effort, adding past failures were “hurting” the batter inside. Adding more context to his statement, Badani revealed his conversation with Samad after SRH’s encounter against KKR, where the team failed to complete nine runs in the final over.
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“I have to give full marks to Samad. He was the first one to come up to me after the last game (vs KKR) and said ‘I should have finished the game’. He took ownership of it. He didn’t finish well and was unhappy about it.
“He was thinking that ‘I am a retained player and I want to show the team that I am worth its time and investment’.
“A few sides have tried doing certain things against him and we have worked on that. One of them did come off this evening,” Badani was quoted as saying by PTI.
