NEWS
Follow UsSunrisers Hyderabad openers Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma have set the 2024 Indian Premier League on fire with their blistering batting, but the two were dismissed inside four overs against Royal Challengers Bengaluru on April 25 (Thursday).
Chasing a target of 206 at Uppal, Head fell to Will Jacks’ off-spin in the first over. Abhishek slammed 31 off 13 deliveries before getting dismissed by Yash Dayal. The Men in Orange could get only 171 in their respective 20 overs and lost the game by 35 runs.
“Obviously, we were confident because of the scores we were able to put up. We thought that 206 was a good score, there was a real confidence in the group because of past performances,” said head coach Daniel Vettori after SRH’s third defeat of the season.
"We also know that it's been set up by the openers and today they had an off day and that's cricket and you have off days. We don't expect them to perform 14 games and unfortunately we didn't get the support in the middle stages. It's a tough loss but we understand that every team in the IPL can beat every team, there are no easy games at all."
When Abhishek got out, the Sunrisers were still going at 10 runs per over. Aiden Markram and Heinrich Klaasen, however, got out in the next over and that shut the game down for SRH. So, should someone have tried to bat through the innings? Vettori doesn’t think so but he did admit that they might have to alter their approach in their next game in Chennai.
"The guys who came off all said that it was a surface that you could score on. Anchor roles when you are chasing 207 is hard to do. Obviously need to be aggressive, 10 an over means you need two boundaries so for someone to settle in and play an anchor role is a little bit tricky but it's certainly something we will look at.
"We have been successful setting totals and now we have to look at our way of chasing. We come up against a really good team in Chennai so I suppose for us is removing ourselves from this game and understanding that the Chepauk wicket could be different and we may have to go about it in a different manner. I still think on this ground, on these surfaces we have to take the game on."
Jaydev Unadkat had a pretty good game, picking up 3/30 in his four overs. The surfaces around the country might get slower and slower in the second half of the tournament and Vettori feels that the experienced left-arm seamer could play a major role for SRH.
"I think when the surface suits him and to be fair to him he probably gets more bounce and has the ability to stop the ball on the wicket than most. Because he almost bowls a top spinner with those slow ball bouncers, so he is really good when he has a set plan.
“Obviously, we left him out in the last game because we thought the surface wasn't quite conducive to him in Delhi but this ground (Hyderabad) he has had three very good performances for us."
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