Sunrisers Hyderabad's new signing Ishan Kishan and Travis Head's century and a fifty respectively helped the last edition's Indian Premier League finalists to register a dominating 44-run win against Rajasthan Royals in their tournament opener at Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium in Hyderabad.
After being asked to bat, SRH openers Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma put up a 45-run stand for the second wicket where Abhishek (24 in 11 balls, with five fours) and Head kickstarted things. Kishan who was playing his debut match with SRH joined Head after the first wicket and both batters started smashing bowlers all over the ground. Travis Head (67 in 31 balls, with nine fours and three sixes) and Kishan accelerated the run-rate). Cameos came from Nitish Kumar Reddy (30 in 15 balls, with four boundaries and a six) and Heinrich Klaasen (34 in 14 balls, with five fours and a six) and provided good support to Ishan, who ended with 106* in 47 balls, with 11 fours and six sixes that helped SRH to put 286 runs on board.
Ishan is one of the core players of the five-time IPL champions Mumbai Indians in the past few years, he had a rough 2024 as he lost his central contract for ignoring domestic cricket for the cash-rich league and MI also didn't retain him.
On the other hand, Rajasthan Royals (RR) failed to get a good start as their star opener Yashasvi Jaiswal departed after scoring just five runs. After Jaiswal's wicket stand-in captain Riyan Parag joined Sanju Samson for the chase but Simarjeet Singh picked up Parag's wicket in the second over of the clash. Samson who came to open alongside Jaiswal played a knock of 66 runs and wicketkeeper batter Dhruv Jurel also smashed 70 of 35 before Adam Zampa picked his wicket in 14.2 over. RR managed to score 242/6 in 20 overs.