Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) head coach Daniel Vettori spoke about his team’s loss to Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) on March 28 in the IPL 2026 tournament opener, and blamed the defeat on his team’s poor bowling performance.
SRH had posted 201/9 after being asked to bat first by RCB, thanks to 89 by interim captain Ishan Kishan and a quick 43 by Aniket Verma. In response, SRH got Phil Salt out early, but Devdutt Padikkal hammered 61 in 26 balls, while Virat Kohli remained 69* as RCB won the game by 6 wickets, chasing the target in 15.4 overs.
Vettori labeled SRH’s bowling performance as poor, for giving the Padikkal and Kohli combo too many opportunities to score.
“You have to get a good start (with the ball), which we did against (Phil) Salt, but then I just think we weren't at our best with the ball. We weren't as disciplined as we needed to be, and we gave a lot of scoring opportunities to Virat and Padikkal, who played exceptionally well," Vettori said in the post-match press conference.
"We should have been able to maintain a little bit more (discipline) after getting that important wicket of Salt. So, it was a very good batting performance by RCB and one of our poorer bowling performances," he added.
According to Vettori, SRH saw how brilliantly RCB pacer Jacob Duffy bowled, but the visiting bowlers were unable to carry out their strategies.
“I think we learned a lot from how RCB bowled and what was effective and what wasn't, but we just weren't able to implement that. You don't want to have a rusty performance because of how important every game is in the IPL, particularly how to start.
But today was one of our challenging bowling displays. We saw at the back end when we started to go back to our usual disciplines that we could actually be effective and take some wickets. But I think we just missed our lengths too much. Duffy in particular showed the length to bowl on that surface," he said.
Vettori hoped that young bowlers such as left-arm pacer David Payne and left-arm spinner Harsh Dubey would come good in the coming matches.
“I think 200, maybe a couple of years ago, you'd think you're safe for 200, but I think we understand where the game's gone and how destructive that RCB batting line-up is,” Vettori stated.
Both of the SRH openers fell cheaply, creating pressure on the middle order, even though Kishan and Klaasen played useful knocks. Vettori stated that he still has a lot of faith in the SRH batting lineup, though.
“We've got a lot of trust in our batting unit. You see Aniket (Verma) coming in at seven and being still able to be aggressive and put us in a position where we had a chance of a defendable total. I think the fact that we don't expect Abhi and Trav to do it every game, we expect them to do it, win a couple of games a season, and we hand that off to all of the batting unit.
“So that top seven's incredibly impressive, and even after that tough start to get to 200 shows the calibre of that group. I think they've just got confidence that they can go out there and play that style, and they understand that we need big scores because of the nature of the IPL these days,” he noted.
Daniel Vettori also gave an update on England all-rounder Brydon Carse and revealed that he missed the game after suffering an injury during practice.
“He got hit on the hand in the nets when he was batting, on his bowling hand, cleared of any break, but quite a lot of swelling, and he tried to push for the game, but it was difficult for him to hold the ball. So he's been improving, so we're hoping he's available for selection for Kolkata,” he added.
(PTI inputs)
