‘I wrote this somewhere…’: Hinge reveals his performance notes

New Delhi: Sunrisers Hyderabad’s Praful Hinge turned his performance into reality in spectacular fashion, returning with figures of 4/34 in Monday’s historic IPL match against Rajasthan Royals. His outstanding performance helped Sunrisers Hyderabad to a 57-run win over Rajasthan Royals at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium in Hyderabad.“I wrote somewhere that I could take four or five wickets on my debut,” Hinge said after winning the Man of the Match award on his debut.Sunrisers Hyderabad posted a mammoth score of 216/6, aided by captain Ishan Kishan’s blast of 91 off 44 balls, with Hinge’s opening burst setting the tone and almost immediately derailing the chase. His first wicket effectively dashed the table players’ hopes of chasing 217 before the innings was settled.Hinge ended the match with a brilliant opening performance of 2-0-6-4, breaking RR’s in-form top spot and leading SRH to their first win over the visitors in five games.“I had written somewhere that I would take 4-5 wickets on debut. I thought about dominating the powerplay. I believed in it (the performance),” Singh told broadcasters after the match.“I started playing cricket at the age of 13. I didn’t know what ball cricket was. I asked my father to join a club. But he said I was too young. Then he took me there and I just kept playing. I want to dedicate this award to my family.”Hinge also revealed that he plans to sack RR opener Vaibhav Sooryavanshi with a bouncer.“I told people I was going to pitch to him and get him out. I just wanted to get him out. Varun bhai (our bowling coach) helped me plan, so thank you,” he said.Singh’s four-wicket haul was complemented by another impressive debut from pacer Sakib Hussain, who returned figures of 4/24.“Every player hopes to have a debut like this, so it feels really good. I am happy. The (SRH) bowling coach informed me a day before the game that I will be playing. From then on, my focus was just on performing well. Mentally, I was ready to give my best,” Hussain said.“Varun (Aaron) Bhai has been working with me for the past four years. Whatever improvement you see in my bowling is because of him. I have complete trust in him. It feels great. To get a performance like this in my debut game is very special,” he added.SRH captain Ishan Kishan praised the intentions of his young pace pair Hinge and Hussain, highlighting their desire and preparation throughout the season.“You also have to look at how hungry your young bowlers are, how motivated they are, you know how eager they are to play in these games and I think they’ve been working on it all season,” he said.“They are working on the fielding with Varun Aaron, our bowling coach, and they are just trying to do their best, talking to all the experienced players. They have performed particularly well in the practice sessions as well, so I think it was the right move today,” Kishan added.Kishan also spoke about the challenges of captaining the wickets.“As captain, I felt, you know, there was some miscommunication. You couldn’t communicate to your bowlers what the plan was. So it’s better to go out there and talk to them about what they’re going to play so we can get a feel for it and set up the field accordingly,” he said.Rajasthan Royals skipper Riyan Parag admitted that he had barely touched SRH’s new pair of balls before.“I haven’t seen them very often in domestic cricket. I think I played Saqib once, Bihar against Assam. But they bowled beautifully. The way they bowled in the first four or five overs was really impressive considering the pressure of the home crowd supporting them and chanting their names,” Parag said.Parag also reflected on his side’s decisions at the toss.“We lost wickets in a row and that’s due to the way they bowled. There may have been some misjudgments from our side too, but we will just treat it as a blip and not think too much about it,” he said.“I felt the bowling could have been better at No. 2, probably because we lost wickets early on. The new ball was a bit sticky when it came to shine. Once the shine wore off, it slowed down a bit.“In hindsight we could have finished second but there were a lot of things we could have done better,” he added.