Warner, Bairstow hit hundreds as SRH post IPL's highest total
Hyderabad: Jonny Bairstow and David Warner tore apart the Royal Challengers Bangalore bowlers with sensational centuries, leading Sunrisers Hyderabad to 231 for two, the highest ever total in IPL history, here Sunday.
Englishman Bairstow struck 114 from just 56 balls while Warner carried his bat for a 55-ball 100 in a record 185-run first-wicket partnership after being put into bat.
Bairstow punished RCB with 12 fours and seven sixes while Warner hit five fours and as many sixes in his 55-ball knock.
RCB captain Virat Kohli's decision to put Sunrisers in backfired as all his bowlers were taken to cleaners by Bairstow and Warner who became the first pair in IPL history to post three consecutive hundred-run stands.
Bairstow and Warner bludgeoned the bowlers, bettering the earlier highest of 184 between KKR's Gautam Gambhir and Chris Lynn in the 2017 edition against Gujarat Lions.
Sunday's innings was also only the second time in IPL history in which two batsmen scored a hundred each.
Bairstow was finally out in the 17th over off Yuzvendra Chahal as he went for yet another big shot but only got the leading edge for Umesh Yadav to take a running catch. He reached to his hundred in 52 balls.
He was particularly harsh on 16-year-old Ray Barman from whom he took 17 runs in the ninth over and later smashed Colin de Grandhomme for 14 runs in the 10th over. He also did not spare India pacer Umesh Yadav who he hit for 16 runs in the 12th over.
Warner played second fiddle all this while and allowed Bairstow to take the initiative but hit fours and sixes in between. The Australian later swung his arms to complete his hundred.
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Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
