IPL 2019: The best team of Week 2

The Indian Premier League 2019 is surely up and running. There are some really good cricket being played day in and day out and there are some terrific performances, both individually and as a team. There are four teams tied at six points and are only differentiated by net run rate.

But Sunrisers Hyderabad are the team that’s leading the points table, courtesy of a superior net run rate. After an initial stutter against KKR, SRH have truly arrived and have started to dominate the league. Hence, they are the best team this week.

Sunrisers started the week with a smashing performance. When RCB came to Hyderabad, Virat Kohli and his men were humiliated as SRH beat them by 118 runs. After being put into bat, Jonny Bairstow and David Warner continued their phenomenal form as they struck scintillating hundreds.

It was Bairstow who started the assault and got to the landmark first but Warner soon caught up and brought up his ton too. The duo shared a stunning 185-run stand as they helped SRH put up a massive 231 in their 20 overs.

It was just the second instance in the IPL that two batsmen scored tons in the same innings. Warner and Bairstow just decimated RCB’s attack, smashing them to all corners of the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium in Hyderabad.

RCB crumbled chasing the mammoth target. They were reduced to 30/5 before Colin de Grandhomme’s 37 took them to 113. Mohammad Nabi picked up four wickets while Sandeep Sharma returned with three wickets.

In the other game of the week, it was time for the bowling to set up the game. The SRH bowlers, led by skipper Bhuvneshwar Kumar, kept a check on the Delhi Capitals’ batsmen as they restricted the hosts to just 129.

Bhuvneshwar, Nabi, and Siddarth Kaul returned with two wickets each while Rashid Khan and Sandeep Sharma took one apiece. Chasing a modest 130 on a tricky pitch, Jonny Bairstow continued his scintillating form as he smashed a 28-ball 48 on a pitch where none of the other batsmen looked comfortable. He set up the chase and even after a mini-collapse towards the end, SRH got over the line comfortably.

This win against Delhi propelled them to the top of the table. But it was the win against RCB that boosted their net run rate and helped them climb to the top. Kings XI Punjab were also unbeaten in the week but just for their sheer dominance, SRH pip the Ravichandran Ashwin-led KXIP to be the best team of the second week.

SRH now play Mumbai Indians and Kings XI Punjab in the next three days before they get a six-day break.