Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) coach Brian Lara lauded Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) ace Virat Kohli for his amazing century against them in recent IPL 2023 match in Hyderabad, which RCB won by 8 wickets chasing 186 runs.
Already out of tournament, Sunrisers Hyderabad did post a decent total of 186, riding on Heinrich Klaasen's brilliant hundred. He scored 104 in 51 balls with 8 fours and 6 sixes.
However, Klaasen’s ton was overshadowed by Virat Kohli, who slammed his sixth IPL century and first since 2018 edition. Aling with his century and RCB skipper Faf du Plessis’ 71 runs, the visiting team won by 8 wickets.
“Our guys played brilliant cricket but we came up against Virat Kohli at his best, and Faf, who has done a tremendous job for RCB throughout the season. He (Faf) is current Orange Cap holder right? So we came up against two world class players and overall I felt was a good effort from the boys," Lara said in post-match presser after SRH’s ninth defeat in 13 games.
Lara also couldn’t put a finger on why SRH lost six home games which became their undoing.
“It's hard to sit here and explain in a broad sense why but just that we are going to get better, but this sort of record -- one win in seven (home games) is something you don't expect but it has happened. It was a good learning experience. The spectators have been tremendous but may be we can start preparing from now, and pay them back for support they have us this year," he added.
Having said that, he praised curators for preparing a good track.
"There is a little bit of home advantage and you got to use your matches at home. It's your facility but in Hyderabad, I think it's fair conditions. At the end of the day, better team on the day wins the game. I must say I congratulate the ground staff for producing good tracks, it's just each and every time, we came up short.
I think it was a good pitch. It spun, it was a bit slow, There was purchase as the game went on. Tonight (May 18), I felt my boys played very good cricket and took the game deep, but they were slightly better on the day, I am not overly disappointed with it, at the start of the season, if we could have taken it to the wire would have been brilliant," Lara signed off.
SRH will face MI in their last IPL 2023 league match on May 21.
(PTI inputs)
