Yusuf Pathan’s late flourish boosts Sunrisers Hyderabad; Chennai Super Kings come back to clinch title

It has usually been a very simple formula to curtail Sunrisers Hyderabad to a modest total — dismiss skipper Kane Williamson and Shikhar Dhawan cheaply. (IPL 2018 final highlights | Scorecard)

Such has been the dominance of the duo at the top of the order that the likes of Alex Hales, Manish Pandey, Carlos Brathwaite and Shakib Al Hasan have often either just plugged in a few runs or been simply inconsistent.

And that’s exactly the reason why on days when the likes of Brathwaite or Rashid Khan have fired, the opposition have been left baffled.

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On Sunday, it was Yusuf Pathan’s turn to emerge as the question that teams often don’t prepare for. It was more than a month back when he had last crossed the 30-run mark but when it perhaps mattered most, the star of the inaugural edition of the Indian Premier League smashed an unbeaten 25-ball 45, laced with four boundaries and two sixes as he helped Sunrisers Hyderabad post a challenging 179-run target against Chennai Super Kings in the IPL 2018 final.

Walking in to bat after Williamson was dismissed by Karn Sharma with 101 runs on the board for the loss of three wickets, Pathan smashed the very second ball he faced, steering Sharma’s pace on the ball to the thirdman boundary.

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He then picked up another boundary off the next over before launching Sharma over extra cover for a gigantic six. The change of bowling didn’t help much as Dwayne Bravo and Lungi Ngidi too got smashed to the fence in sublime style.

He was well assisted by Shakib and Brathwaite on either side of Deepak Hooda’s short stay at the crease. While Shakib scored a 15-ball 25 before holing one straight to Suresh Raina off Bravo, Brathwaite played a late cameo, scoring a quickfire 11-ball 21 to help his side.

However, Pathan’s knock eventually went to vain as Chennai Super Kings, lead by Shane Watson’s unbeaten 117, bounced back from a slow start to comfortably win by eight wickets and clinch their third IPL title.