Sunrisers Hyderabad had made a great start, but their innings had started to plateau. At 161/7 off 18 overs they had the opportunity to get a score of 190+, or, if things went really poorly 175. Andre Russell was running into bowl...
He bowled a very good over, removing Braithwaite before only conceding 7 in his final 5 balls. All thoughts of a big finish were gone.
A week later, the Sunrisers were in the qualification final, and things were not going well. After 8 overs they were on 54/4, going at less than 7 an over, and at serious risk of scoring less than 100.
Dwayne Bravo was the bowler this time. He bowled a wide, then a couple of deliveries that Yusuf Pathan managed to hit for 2 each, and ended with a couple of easy singles. It was an over where almost no pressure was put onto the batsmen. And yet, it only went for 7 runs, the same as Andre Russell's excellent over a week earlier.
There's something wrong with any statistic that rates those overs as being of the same value to the team, and yet that's exactly what the traditional Economy Rate does. 7 runs is 7 runs.
