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Absolom guns down Rockets

Principal Correspondent

Rayudu finds his touch to score a half-century

HYDERABAD: Medium-pacer Alfred Absolom returned dream figures of 4-0-15-7, the best so far in the Twenty20 format, to fashion Hyderabad Heroes’s 53-run win over Ahmedabad Rockets in the Edelweiss 20s Challenge cricket championship at the Lal Bahadur Stadium here on Friday.

On a pleasant afternoon, it seemed destined to be Hyderabad’s day from the word go. First, Aussie southpaw Jimmy Maher played an explosive knock of 84 (52b, 12x4, 1x6) to set the tempo.

Then, local boy Ambati Rayudu finally found his touch to score his maiden half-century in the ICL (65, 36b, 6x4, 4x6) to help Heroes post 175 for four in 18 overs after the match was reduced by two overs due to rain.

Ahmedabad Rockets was penalised four runs for slow over-rate and was consequently set a target of 180 in 18 overs. Maher treated the Rockets bowlers with contempt. The first to get the stick was Jason Gillespie, who was whipped past square-leg for two boundaries in an over. The next was medium-pace bowler Babu Rao Yadav, who was pulled with ease and driven through the covers.

Rayudu, with an average of 13 in the ICL before this match, began in style when he leaned into an exquisite cover-drive off Yadav. That was just the beginning, as he was soon playing in his usual style to come up with a classy knock to silence his critics.

Rayudu’s best shot

Even the rain interruption did not affect his rhythm. In the first over after resumption, Rayudu executed a straight drive off Reetinder Singh Sodhi to notch up his 50 and then celebrated it in style with a six into the stands at mid-wicket. The best shot of Rayudu’s innings was when he stepped out to swing Gillespie for a huge six.

It was a difficult chase and Rockets faltered from the beginning. Despite Parvez Aziz’s breezy knock (35, 22b, 6x4) and a useful contribution by Sridharan Sriram (36, 22b, 4x4), Rockets fell short of the target.

Rockets ran into an unexpected hero — Absolom — playing his first match. To the delight of his captain Chris Harris, the Hyderabad youngster bowled a wicket-to-wicket line and let the ball do the trick. His double blow in the eighth over when he cleaned up Parvez and Wavell Hinds (16) was just the break the home team was looking for.

Again in the 12th over, Alfred lured Murray Goodwin (8) into an off-drive which went straight to Nicky Boje in the deep and then trapped Rockets’ skipper Damien Martyn (1) leg-before to leave Rockets struggling at 92 for five.

Absolom struck another double blow in the 16th over dismissing Sodhi (0) and Babu Rao Yadav (1) off successive deliveries. “I think it was my day. Everything clicked and I am very pleased. I thank the team for the way it supported me,” he said.

With this win, Hyderabad Heroes has three wins from four matches to move to second place with six points behind Lahore Badshahs while Rockets is at the bottom with two points from four matches.

The scores: Hyderabad Heroes 179 for four in 20 overs (inclusive of four runs for slow over rate) (Jimmy Maher 84, A.T. Rayudu 65) bt Ahmedabad Rockets 127 in 17.5 overs (Parvez Aziz 35, Sridharan Sriram 36, Alfred Absolom seven for 15).

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