Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) captain David Warner clarified that he has no role in dropping Manish Pandey from the playing eleven. After SRH lost to Delhi Capitals (DC) on Sunday (April 25), he said it was a harsh decision by the team's selectors to axe Pandey from the side.
SRH middle-order once again failed badly in a 160-run chase. They managed only 159 and lost the match in the super-over with Kane Williamson scoring 66 not out in the chase. In the super-over, SRH scored 7 runs batting first and DC won the match on the last ball.
“It depends on the selectors, it was a harsh call,” Warner said at the post-match presentation. Pandey scored 61*, 38, and 2 before getting dropped from the playing eleven.
“But at the end of the day it is a decision that they took and you cannot discredit Virat, he’s a very good player and the surface was difficult.
“Obviously Jonny at the top of the order and Kane taking it deep, we couldn’t bat well in the middle overs.”
Warner praised their bowlers for not letting the Delhi Capitals capitalize on their good start. Prithvi Shaw and Shikhar Dhawan had added 81 runs for the first wicket in 10.2 overs.
“It has been a tough one. The way our bowlers came back after the powerplay was fantastic,” he said. “We knew on this surface if you got off to a flier it is always going to be tough in the middle, the bowlers executed well.
“I thought Vijay (Shankar), who is not one of our strike bowlers, bowled fantastically, could have bowled him an extra one, that’s the handiness of having him in the middle but the bowlers got us to a good total to chase.
“They bowled well in the middle and made it challenging for us.”
Warner was unfortunate to lose his wicket in run-out once again. He rues challenging a world-class fielder like Kagiso Rabada. “If you hit the ball to a world-class fielder, you are going to get run out 9 times out of 10,” he said.
