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From Sanju Samson's beautiful batting display in Rajasthan's innings to Jason Roy quickfire runs in SunRisers Hyderabad's, this match lived up to its expectations of being one for batters.
The pitch at the Dubai International Stadium is known to be a batters paradise, so when Samson decided to bat first on winning the toss, it was no surprise.
Coming in at No 3 on losing opener Evin Lewis in just the second over, Samson showed glimpses of his class with shots through all corners of the field -- a crisp cover drive here, a whip through the pads there.
By the end of the Powerplay overs, Rajasthan had raced to 49 for 1.
Rajasthan soon lost the wickets of Jaiswal and Liam Livingstone, but Samson was undeterred. He partnered with Mahipal Lomror and the two made every bad ball count, so much so that Rashid Khan was sent to the cleaners in the 15th over -- 11 coming off it.
The over after Siddharth Kaul was at the receiving end as Samson alone smashed him for 20 runs!
With four overs remaining, Samson on fire, the scoreboard reading 133 for 3 and a flat deck for batting, it was imperative for Rajasthan to set a target of over 180 runs.
But despite taking Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Jason Holder to the cleaners in the 17th and 18th overs, Rajasthan were stopped in their tracks as Bhuvi and Sid Kaul gave just 11 in the final two overs.
Kaul dismissing Samson in the 20th over hugely impacted the final score and thereby the nature of the game -- Rajasthan posted a par score that SRH were confident of overhauling.
So when out came Jason Roy and Wriddhiman Saha to hunt down the target of 165, the duo came out all guns blazing.
In four overs they put up 39 runs and there was just no stopping them, especially debutant Roy. In the 11th over, he almost single-handedly demolished spinner Rahul Tewatia belting the bowler for 21 runs all around the stadium and bringing up his half-century.
Roy was dismissed in the next over, but he had already given Hyderabad the impetus and Skipper Kane Williamson just carried forward the momentum and took his team home for just their second win of IPL 2021.
Plugging the runs at the backend of the Rajasthan innings and then getting Samson's wicket in the 20th over before Roy's assault -- not allowing Rajasthan's bowlers to settle tilted the match in Hyderabad's favour.