IPL 2021: Natarajan had a niggle in his left knee, hence was ruled out, reveals SRH mentor VVS Laxman

SRH lost a match that they should have won against MI.

Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) mentor VVS Laxman talked about the team’s performance against Mumbai Indians in their last match, which they lost from a winning position. He also touched upon why they left left-arm pacer T Natarajan out of the playing XI.

Chasing a modest 151-run target, SRH could manage only 137 in 19.4 overs as their batsmen struggled to score runs in the middle overs on Saturday.

"That's (taking singles and twos) a very important skill especially on this kind of wickets because it is not easy to hit through the line. You can't rely on just boundaries and sixes. It's very important to keep the dot-ball percentage low, and the only way you can do it is by manipulating the field by rotating the strike.

IPL 2021: Manish Pandey must be unhappy with how he got out, says SRH mentor VVS Laxman

That is one aspect of the game which is very important on this kind of wickets. Unfortunately, we were not able to do that especially when Rahul Chahar was bowling and even when other fast bowlers were bowling in the middle overs,” said Laxman on SRH’s loss.  

Laxman also revealed that T Natarajan had a niggle in his left knee and hence was replaced by Khaleel Ahmed in the playing XI.

"Unfortunately, Natarajan had a niggle in his left knee and that's why he was ruled out and that's why we went with Khaleel Ahmed. We are going to assess the condition of Natarajan,” Laxman said.

"I was very impressed with the way Khaleel bowled. In his first game of the season, he assessed the conditions really well and used a lot of his variations along with extracting a lot of pace and bounce off the surface. So a lot of positives [to take] for SRH from the way Khaleel Ahmed bowled," Laxman said.

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Asked if struggling Manish Pandey could be demoted in the batting order, Laxman did not give a direct answer.

"We have been flexible with our batting order. Even today we made changes, we had Virat Singh and Abhishek Sharma, two left-hand batters, to counter the Mumbai spinners. We have got some days before the next game, and we will definitely go back to the drawing board to work out the strategy to get a win under our belt and we will look at what the best combination and batting order is,” Laxman signed off.

SRH will next play Punjab Kings on April 21 in Chennai.

(PTI inputs)