Talking Points: Don't bowl spin upfront to Warner

Warner-Bairstow's hot streak

David Warner made roughly 30 percent of Sunrisers Hyderad's runs in four seasons until 2017. So when they lost his services last year, their average opening partnership for the season dropped to a lowly 27.7, the third-worst among all teams in IPL 2018.

They decided to offload Shikhar Dhawan and signed Jonny Bairstow to partner Warner this season, and the association has worked wonders, with the pair becoming the first-ever in IPL history to string together a hat-trick of century stands. Their first two century stands were defined by Warner setting the pace. On Sunday, Bairstow took the lead, bringing up his maiden IPL ton in the process.

Warner and Bairstow's 185-run partnership, now the highest opening stand in IPL history, was near-chanceless, characterised as much by consistent boundary-hitting as by their running between the wickets. As per ESPNcricinfo's logs, 207 out of Sunrisers' 231 runs came with the batsmen in control: few edges and chances, mostly just clean hitting.

With Kane Williamson missing from two of their three games so far, and an underexposed middle-order to follow, their runs - and the pace at which they've got them will be missed by Sunrisers, when the duo head for their pre-World Cup camps towards the business end of the tournament.

Offspinners to the left-handers? Not if it's Warner

Virat Kohli opened the bowling with Moeen Ali. Sunrisers switched too, with Bairstow taking strike. Teams regularly unleash their fingerspinners on left-handed batsmen, for reasons well-known: historical success enabled by their angles, with the possibility of an odd straight skirter pinning them in front.

Warner's been an outlier to this trend: no fingerspinner (except Sunil Narine, who isn't your traditional offie) has dismissed him in the Powerplay since IPL 2011. He averages 287 against all spin in the Powerplay since IPL 2016, at a strike rate of 154. Moeen was duly taken apart for consecutive fours, en route to a 14-run opening over.

David Warner. Rashid Khan. Kane Williamson. Jonny Bairstow/Billy Stanlake/Shakib Al Hasan.

At various points over the past four seasons, Sunrisers' overseas roster has picked itself, and you wouldn't blame them for not thinking about someone like Mohammad Nabi. He is a key overseas player for T20 sides around the world, most notably at Melbourne Renegades in the Big Bash League and Leicestershire in England's T20 Blast.

Here, he is a utility fringe player they turn to when there's an injury to one of their regular starters. Nabi hasn't played more than three games in a season, and started for the first time on Sunday thanks to an injury to captain Williamson.

Most often used as a new-ball bowler and a containing option in the middle overs, Nabi has done his job almost every time, including a few low-scoring games in the past two seasons. On Sunday, with the threat of Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers going on one of their assaults at a big target, Nabi knocked the wind out of their sails in the Powerplay, bagging his best IPL figures of 4 for 11. His wickets? Parthiv Patel, and three of RCB's biggest six-hitters: de Villiers, Shimron Hetmyer and Shivam Dube, four wickets that were worth 4.7 on the Smart Stats scale.