Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) mentor VVS Laxman felt mistakes made against Mumbai Indians' (MI) explosive middle-order batsmen, Kieron Pollard, Hardik Pandya and Krunal Pandya, proved too costly as his team suffered a 34-run defeat in Sharjah this Sunday (October 4) in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2020.
MI's opener Quinton de Kock (67) struck a fine half-century to set a nice foundation, before they really took the game away from SRH via cameos from Hardik (28), Pollard (25*) and Krunal Pandya (20*).
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The trio, along with other contributors Suryakumar Yadav (27) and Ishan Kishan (31), enabled the score of 208/5.
Laxman thought there were just enough errors in line and length from his team's pacemen at the death for Pollard & co to get underneath the ball and hit them for sixes.
"When you are playing against quality players/strikers like (Kieron) Pollard, Hardik (Pandya), you want to be at your best, especially your defensive lines. On this wicket, the ground is small, dimensions of the square boundary are small, so anything in the length will disappear from these power-hitters," he said at the post-match press conference, as quoted by PTI.
"The best defensive ball was yorker and we tried our best, we were successful the majority of the times, but whenever the ball landed on length, they have got the experience and power to dispatch it out of the boundary," Laxman added.
T Natarajan (0/29) and Rashid Khan (1/22) were outstanding on the day, but they lacked quality support at the other end, as Sandeep Sharma (2/41) and Siddharth Kaul (2/64) were taken to the cleaners. The fifth-bowler, comprising of part-timers Abdul Samad (0/27) and Kane Williamson (0/24), was the weak-link again for SRH.
In the second half, only skipper David Warner (60) provided some fight while the rest of the batting unit failed, with just Jonny Bairstow (25) and Manish Pandey (30) crossing the 20-run mark. Samad (20) did try to slog the ball out of the park, but the task was too difficult at the end.
"You have to have wickets in hand, but at the same time when you are chasing such a big total, you also have to maintain the run-rate," said Laxman. "Kane and then Warner (got out), just when Warner was looking to chase again and picking up momentum, we lost him and Kane's dismissal was also a crucial one, because you know the experience Kane has to handle various situations."
"In the end, I felt it was too much for youngsters to get, but I was very impressed with the way (Abdul) Samad came and expressed himself."
"I am sure the batsmen will learn from this experience because it is important to have wickets in hand if you are chasing a big total on this ground," he added.
SRH next play Kings XI Punjab (KXIP) in Dubai on Thursday (October 8).
