Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) captain David Warner said he missed his star seamer Bhuvneshwar Kumar in the team’s 34-run defeat the Mumbai Indians (MI) in the 17th match of the ongoing Indian Premier League (IPL) 2020 at Sharjah Cricket Stadium on Sunday (4th October).
He also lamented the lack of the partnerships and their failure to execute on plans in the death overs that led SRH to suffer its third defeat in the ongoing 13th edition of the IPL 2020 in the UAE.
On Sunday, the MI’s hard-hitting batsman made the most of the Sharjah's small ground and arbitrary pitch and posted a big score of 208/5 on the board and then delivered a brilliant bowling show to stop SRH at 174/7 in 20 overs to win the IPL 13 game by 34 runs to secure the first position in the point table.
Following its third defeat in five matches in the ongoing IPL 2020, the SRH now sits sixth in the point table and captain Warner pointed out the things that cost them the game against the MI.
The SRH had to make two changes in the playing XI because of the injuries to Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Khaleel Ahmed, as they brought in Sandeep Sharma and Siddarth Kaul for the two stars against MI and the skipper was a bit critical of his bowlers as Mumbai added 71 runs in the last 5 overs of the innings.
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Warner said at the post-match presser: “Two new guys coming in today with Bhuvi injured as well. There are a lot of things we can work on in training. We failed to put the yorker properly. I counted probably seven or eight full-tosses towards the back end. From the execution point of view, we didn’t nail that.”
On SRH’s batting effort, the Australian opener (60 off 44 balls) said his team’s failure to build up partnerships at middle played a big role in the Hyderabad’s 34-run loss to Mumbai.
They got off a decent start with Warner and Jonny Bairstow (25) formed a 34-run partnership before Trent Boult dismissed Englishman in the fifth over. Later, Manish Pandey (30) took over the SRH to the 50-run mark along with the skipper Warner before James Pattinson dismissed him in the 10th over and the then the team saw an embarrassing downfall at the middle-order to suffer a defeat against MI.
Warner further noted, “Looking at the stats, their (Mumbai Indians’) two experienced bowlers bowled well in the middle overs. Obviously, with 200-plus on the board, we tried to go 10 an over, but we couldn’t get a partnership strung together long enough.”
However, the SRH skipper felt the 2016 IPL champions might have failed to not assess the circumstances correctly in Sharjah since the wicket was too different in the second innings.
He signed off by saying, “I think we did not assess the circumstances correctly. During the day the pitch was slow but when the ball was old it was more difficult to take shots.”
(With ANI Inputs)