Sunrisers epitomise T20-style uncertainty

Sunrisers Hyderabad have to be one of the more interesting teams to follow in the IPL. They don't have the feel-good underdog qualities of Rajasthan Royals (when their owners are not being accused of hanky panky), they don't have the efficiency of Chennai Super Kings (even when they need to make a request or two to acquire Andrew Flintoff), they don't do as much charity work as Mumbai Indians do, but they mix and match charm and flaw. With their ordinary auctioning and their subsequent selections, there is no way they can be boring the Jose Mourinho fashion.

Sunrisers don't plan well in the off-season, they let the best dancer-cheerleader Kris Srikkanth go, they auction poorly, but somehow manage dream pairings. David Warner and Shikhar Dhawan. Two left-hand openers who not long ago were sledging each other but are now scoring 50% of their team's runs. Trent Boult and Dale Steyn. The newest swing bowler in town taking over from old master on the decline. And for the lovers of a good old pair of Meerut's kainchi [scissors], there are the Kumars, Bhuvneshwar and Praveen. A Kumar too many for the Indian team, but both at home in the same XI in the T20 competition.

Yet the rest are such ordinary selections that it seems these six are fighting not just the other team but also their own team-mates. Which other team bids for three England batsmen, the least valued commodity in Twenty20 cricket, and still miss out on Alex Hales? It can be fascinating to watch the other six rise above mediocrity around them mainly because they have it in them.

Against Kolkata Knight Riders, in a shortened game (how much more can you shorten it?) and with a wet ball, with the opposition only three down, the Kumars unleashed a spate of yorkers and low full tosses to defend 36 in three overs. That after the rest of the side had managed only 46 in 5.4 overs since Warner's dismissal.

In Mumbai, when the Kumars and Boult and Steyn all played together, they kept the hosts down to 157 for 8 on a pitch with a par score of 180, then Dhawan and Warner took them to 45 in five overs, but the rest contrived to lose by a whopping 20 runs. Coming to Mohali, Sunrisers kept persisting with the bumbling Ravi Bopara - with Kane Williamson and Eoin Morgan on the bench - and also had to break the duo of Boult and Steyn, hoping an allrounder will strengthen the poor middle order a bit.

So now six good men was reduced to five. How were they going to respond? On a green pitch with the ball moving around and with Dhawan out early, Warner batted as if on another surface, in another universe. While he was at the wicket he scored 58 off 41, the rest 18 off 18 - and that includes extras. It was a display of both daring and execution. He knew he couldn't let Mitchell Johnson settle so he kept making room and kept using his pace. There was a top-edged six, but it was forgotten immediately to forward-defence one through mid-on for four. Sandeep Sharma began with a maiden to him in the first over of the game, but was taken to pieces as he let the ball swing and drove him late before cashing in with a fourth boundary in the fifth over when Sandeep pitched short as a reaction.

Despite a green pitch Warner had given Sunrisers a start that would be good for 180 for any other team but that's not how Sunrisers roll. Nobody who has followed Sunrisers this season could predict with any confidence what they would get. If Warner batted till the end, 200 was gettable, if he got out at that instant they could struggle to add even 60 runs in the last 10 overs. It even looked like a wicket might fall every time he was at the non-striker's end. You want T20-style uncertainty? You get it every moment with Sunrisers.

And then Warner got out in the 10th over. And once again while Sunrisers' Indian domestic batsmen will get the stick - and the axe in KL Rahul's case - it was the overseas players failing to take that extra responsibility. If it was Bopara who failed to get a move on against Mumbai, this time Moises Henriques scored 30 off 32 to go with Bopara's two-ball duck. Henriques, though, can be called on to bowl more regularly than Bopara, and at least he got himself out with there being a theoretical chance of a win. Ashish Reddy got them to 150, and Sunrisers have now defended 150 or less half the times they have posted it.

The delightful bowling combination then swung it early in the piece and yorked it late, and despite all the luck Wriddhiman Saha - two dropped catches, a boundary off the thigh pad from outside off to fine leg - brought with him to Mohali, they won by 20 runs. This team might not win the title, and it will be some ride if they do, but they will be the ones to watch out for twists and turns.