Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) captain Kane Williamson on Sunday (6 May) told Press Trust of India that David Warner has been a crucial part of their team over the years and is potentially irreplaceable. Sadly, Warner is not a part of the IPL this season after his infamous involvement in the ball tampering scandal in the Test series against South Africa which concluded before the IPL season. HIs teammate Steve Smith is also missing out this season due to the same reason. Rajasthan Royals earlier, retained Steve Smith as their skipper for the season but later named Ajinkya Rahane as the skipper after Smith's participation was ruled out as well.
Williamson was named as SRH captain after Warner, who led Hyderabad to IPL title in 2016, was suspended by Cricket Australia following the ball-tampering controversy in South Africa.
Hyderabad has been doing well in the IPL 2018 without the Aussie, standing at the top of the points table at the moment. Their bowling attack has taken up the mantle to win them games after Warner's absence has weakened the batting line-up upto some extent
On Monday (7 May), Williamson and his men will lock horns against the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) at the Rajiv Gandhi International Cricket Stadium, and they will certainly need to post a mammoth total on the board to be in the IPL 2018 encounter, as RCB’s Virat Kohli and Mandeep Singh are already in stunning form with the willow, while AB de Villiers is fit and ready to fire runs that will certainly add additional pressure on the SRH.
On the eve of SRH’s next IPL 2018 encounter against the RCB, Williamson told reporters, “I don't think it's a matter of replacing David Warner. I think that's probably an impossible thing to do. He is one of the best T20 batters in the world and for this franchise in the last few years.”
The New Zealand skipper further added, “It's nice to be on top of the table. But at the same time, I mentioned a number of times that we want to keep seeing those improvements, keep adapting to the different surfaces that we would be faced with in every game.”
Williamson signed off by saying, “The RCB side, they are fantastic. There are number of teams in the competition that haven't come away with wins like they would have wanted to. A lot of those teams have lost really close games and things can be very different in T20 cricket. We know they are a very strong team with some of the best players in the world.”
