Jaipur, April 26 (IANS) Skipper Pat Cummins admitted that stopping teenage sensation Vaibhav Sooryavanshi was the biggest challenge as Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) registered a five-wicket win over Rajasthan Royals at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium on Saturday.

Cummins, who gave away just 27 in his four overs revealed that his bowling plan revolved around limiting Sooryavanshi’s impact by keeping him off strike as much as possible.

“Yeah, good start. IPL doesn’t get any easier in terms of its big scores. So, got away with one tonight. The openers were going pretty hard. Young boy hits it pretty hard. Just trying to escape him really and try and bowl as many balls down the other end,” he said in a video released by IPL on X.

The 15-year-old had earlier dominated the SRH attack with a sensational 103 off 37 balls, smashing 12 sixes and five fours to power Rajasthan Royals to a massive 228/6 after being asked to bat first.

Despite the early onslaught, SRH managed to control the scoring slightly in the death overs, preventing RR from adding another 10-15 runs which could have made the chase even tougher.

Chasing 229, SRH came out aggressively despite losing an early wicket. Ishan Kishan led the counterattack with a blistering 74 off 31 balls, while Abhishek Sharma smashed 57 off 29. The duo stitched a crucial 132-run partnership that turned the game in SRH’s favour.

Kishan echoed Cummins’ views on the increasing difficulty for bowlers and also spoke about the toss factor as in a light-hearted manner.

“Not winning the toss, we needed to make a change. That’s the only reason why. I was most happy because you know Pat coming in and winning the toss for SRH finally after the seventh game. So, I felt somehow if he loses the toss today, I’ll give away the credit to Mr. Vijay who is our manager. Because of him, I was being unlucky,” he said.

“Again, he walked out with the same guy, winning the toss finally, winning this game, his first game here. And as Pat said, cricket is getting difficult and difficult for the bowlers here,” he added.

Kishan was the stand in captain for SRH in first seven games but was unlucky as he lost the toss in all the matches but as soon as Cummins took over as captain, SRH won the toss and opted to bowl against RR.

–IANS

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