Rahul Tripathi was left distraught after a horrible mix-up with Abdul Samad led to his dismissal in the all-important first Qualifier between Kolkata Knight Riders and Sunrisers Hyderabad in Ahmedabad on Tuesday. Tripathi had batted brilliantly amid a rare batting failure for SRH, scoring a fifty, but a lack of communication led to a disastrous run-out, cutting short an innings that could make a difference in the outcome.
Tripathi left the scene shattered and, in a heartbreaking sight, sat alone on the staircase, his head buried. Samad was full of remorse as well, for he knew that could have turned out a whole lot different. Tripathi had tapped the ball wide of the fielder at point, but Andre Russell sprinted, grabbed it and returned a bullet throw to the keeper. Samad took off, and Tripathi responded but in for some reason, realised the run wasn’t on and stopped mid-way. Samad eventually made the crease at the non-striker, but SRH were dealt their biggest blow of the evening.
Sunil Gavaskarwho was doing commentary was not impressed with Samad and threw the blame entirely on him. “Totally Samad’s fault. Tripathi was backing up alright. There was no run in it. The ball was stopped. Unnecessary wicket… at the wrong time for Sunrisers,” he said.
The visuals of a crestfallen Tripathi was aptly summed up by Gavaskar’s commentary partner Ian Bishop when he said “I don’t think I have ever seen that sort of posture openly from a dismissed batsman. He had just cleared the boundary before.” And he was right. Tripathi had looked like a million bucks during his knock of 55 which included seven fours and a six. He was striking the ball well at 157.14 before disaster struck.
Watch the run out and Tripathi’s reaction below:
The Sunrisers were in for a bit of a rude awakening. Their destructive opening pair of Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma, ‘Travishek’ were dismissed inside the Powerplay. Mitchell Starc drew first bloody, rattling the stumps of fellow Australian head for a second consecutive duck in IPL 2024 at the venue where six months ago, he broke a billion hearts. The very next over, Vaibhav Arora got rid of the dangerous Abhishek, leaving SRH at 13/2 inside two overs.
Sunrisers Hyderabad finish with 159
It could well have been 21/3, but Starc and KKR did not take the review when Shreyas Iyer and the umpires missed a yorker thudding into Tripathi’s boots. It was just the slice of luck SRH needed, as Tripathi went around his business, scoring a crucial half-century off 29 balls to keep the scoreboard ticking. In between, wickets kept falling as Nitish Reddy and Shahbaz Ahmed returned cheaply but the pair of Tripathi and Heinrich Klaasen added 62 runs for the fifth wicket.
But once both the set batters were dismissed, the wheels came off putting SRH were in danger of getting bowled out when they were limited to 126/9 in the 16th over. Captain Pat Cummins’ rearguard effort of 30 off 24 balls, however, with two fours and two sixes added some respect to the total as SRH finished with 159 all out in 19.3 overs. The last-wicket partnership of 33 was the second-highest of the innings.
