"WHATEVER ground we go to," Daniel Vettori had fired a warning shot on the eve of Sunrisers Hyderabad's season-opener against Rajasthan Royals, "we have an understanding that the batting team is going to be aggressive. The only thing that can mitigate that is the pitch, but most times, the pitches in the IPL are very flat.
"It's quite... maybe not fun is the right word, it's a good challenge for a bowling group to try and work their way through that."
Vettori was intimate with what Pat Cummins, the franchise captain, told the team. The Australian had said the onus was on the batters to do all the heavy-lifting with the bowling group potentially feeding off that energy. "If we get those days to make it all work, it's going to go a long way in us winning games," the Kiwi said. "The onus is on the batting group to score runs and for the bowlers to be able to mitigate that."
On the evidence of what transpired in their home ground on Sunday afternoon, Hyderabad are on course to not only emulate but perhaps go one better than 2024 when they tripped at the final hurdle.
On a belter of a deck, all of Travis Head, Abhishek Sharma, Ishan Kishan, Nitish Reddy and Heinrich Klaasen routinely hit boundaries in a display of brute power-hitting. Even if some of the shots were premeditated, there was a distinct method to the mayhem they unleashed — staying leg-side of the ball, clearing the in-field and playing the percentages.
Kishan, one of the franchise's big-money signings at the mega auction last year (`11.25 cr), had been a hit-or-miss batter for his previous team, Mumbai Indians. But what Kishan offers is he immediately lifts the ceiling of this team considerably from a hitting perspective. Like Head and Sharma, he uses significant muscle and doesn't bother too much when it comes to wicket preservation.
Against Rajasthan, he displayed some of those trademark characteristics after the pair of Headishek had done their thing. A rapid 45-run stand off just legal deliveries. It's why this batting line-up is so hard to contain when the openers bat for the first few overs. Unlike some of the other openers in the league, they are okay playing out dots. But they aren't big fans of singles and strike rotation. It's either go big or go home.
In their stand of 45, there were as many as six dots but there were only five scoring shots that weren't boundaries. A ridiculous 36 runs came off boundaries before Maheesh Theekshana dismissed the Indian southpaw.
But with control already ceded, the visitors were playing catch-up. The bowler could have had Kishan for nought if they had a slip off the second ball he faced. But with the visitors already on the defensive, it was a luxury they couldn't afford. That was the luck Kishan needed as he went boundary-hunting across all sides of the ground. In fact, five of his six scoring shots were fours. The over he truly announced his return to the big time? That came in the 13th over when he hit three sixes off Jofra Archer, with two off those coming over cover on the off-side.
It was just power-hitting dialled to 11 as Kishan made room and let his hand-eye coordination do the rest. Other bowlers also travelled as the Jharkhand-born keeper-batter kept clearing the boundary just in front of square on the off-side. When the moment came, his first IPL ton, the adrenaline was coursing through his veins.
"I just feel good," he told the official broadcasters after his innings. "It (century) was coming. I was hoping for it in the previous years, the team is doing well and the environment is very different." Like the other batters -- both Indian and overseas -- had said last year, he credited Cummins for the 'freedom' he had given the No. 3 batter. "The skipper, he's giving a lot of freedom to everyone. Doesn't matter if you get a lot of runs or if you get out early."
Their template may not be this successful, there will be off days. There will be nights when the entire batting unit folds cheaply. But Cummins, Vettori & Co. are okay with that.
Because the upside is clearly stratospheric.
Rajasthan tried gamely but the game was up even before their openers had walked out to chase 287.
Brief scores: Sunrisers Hyderabad: 286/6 in 20 overs (Ishan Kishan 106 not out, Travis Head 67) beat Rajasthan Royals: 242 for 6 in 20 overs (Dhruv Jurel 70, Sanju Samson 66; Harshal Patel 2/34).