The Boult and the beautiful

Mohali, Kings XI Punjab kept their fans in this part of the world waiting for about 20 days to see them in action at their home ground. Despite no longer being the first priority of the franchise, the fans here have apparently taken no slight. They still packed the stadium to near capacity, cheered the team all along, helped by some loud, overzealous and extra-enthusiastic local announcer, till the very finish.
Unfortunately, the team let them down once again as they lost their homecoming match to Sunrisers Hyderabad by 20 runs. The Kings XI must have been pretty satisfied when they restricted the Sunrisers to 150. But they soon realized it wasn’t going to be easy against the disciplined Sunrisers; and all seemed lost for them when all their top batmen were back in the hut at 72 for 5.
A fine partnership between Wriddhiman Saha (42) and Axar Patel (17), however, brought them back into the game. Saha, in particular, showed great poise, grit and improvisation to keep Kings XI hanging in there.
But the hopes of the hosts and the thousands rooting for them were snuffed out in the 18th over when Trent Boult dismissed both Saha and Patel to put the game practically in the Sunrisers’ pocket.
The Kiwi was brilliant right through, picking up three wickets for just 19 runs in four overs.
He troubled all Kings’ batsmen with his sharp pace and the in-swinging deliveries. He was well supported by Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Karn Sharma.
Earlier, as is generally the case with Sunrisers, the major contribution to their total came from skipper David Warner. The left-hander’s 41-ball 58 helped the team post what turned out to be a match-winning total on a bowler-friendly Mohali wicket. While the batsmen at the other end struggled to handle the pace of Mitchell Johnson and the swing of Sandeep Kumar, the skipper dealt mainly in boundaries after playing out a maiden over to begin with. That he scored 45 runs out of the first 46 runs put on board by the Sunrisers showed how dominant he was, and how others struggled to cope.
With him out there in the middle, Sunrisers looked on course for a huge total but his dismissal, a tame one, helped Kings XI claw back into the game. Despite losing him with just 75 runs on the board, the Sunrisers, who depend so heavily on him and Shikhar Dhawan, did well to gather exactly the same number of runs more and finish at 150.
Scoreboard
Sunrisers Hyderabad
D Warner c Miller b Patel 58
S Dhawan c Vijay b Johnson 1
G Vihari c Vohra b Anureet 9
M Henriques b Sandeep 30
N Ojha c Miller b Patel 28
R Bopara c Saha b Johnson 0
A Reddy not out 22
K Sharma not out 1
Extras (lb 1) 1
Total (6 wickets; 20 overs) 150
Fall of wickets: 1-10, 2-56, 3-76,
4-121, 5-123, 6-136
Bowling
S Sharma 4-1-35-1
M Johnson 4-0-39-2
Anureet 4-0-27-1
M Vijay 3-0-16-0
A Patel 4-0-25-2
R Dhawan 1-0-7-0
Kings XI Punjab
M Vijay run out (Vihari) 12
M Vohra b Boult 5
S Marsh b B Kumar 1
G Bailey c K Sharma b Henriques 22
D Miller c Boult b K Sharma 15
W Saha c P Kumar b Boult 42
A Patel b Boult 17
R Dhawan lbw b B Kumar 4
M Johnson not out 4
Anureet c Warner b P Kumar 0
S Sharma not out 1
Extras (lb 2, w 5) 7
Total (9 wickets; 20 overs) 130
Fall of wickets: 1-10, 2-13, 3-45,
4-53, 5-72, 6-116, 7-123, 8-126, 9-127
Bowling
T Boult 4-0-19-3
B Kumar 4-0-23-2
P Kumar 4-0-34-1
K Sharma 4-0-22-1
M Henriques 4-0-30-1