Sunrisers Hyderabad took a thrashing in an IPL match on Tuesday, when they lost to Gujarat Titans by 82 runs at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad. On a tricky wicket, SRH did well to restrict GT to 168 for 5, but Kagiso Rabada, Mohammed Siraj and Jason Holder ran through the star-studded batting lineup of the visitors, as they were bundled out for 86 in 14.5 overs.
Maybe a watchful start by openers Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma could have anchored the run chase, but they fell in the first two overs. In the powerplay, SRH were reeling at 32 for 4. Despite the massive defeat, SRH coach Daniel Vettori has backed the approach of the batters.
“We always want to get off to a good start, that’s our MO through the power play,” Vettori said in the press conference.
“Today, even though they bowled exceptionally well, there were a couple of unfortunate dismissals for the first two, and then from there it was tough to really regroup as they just keep putting pressure on. We knew coming up against their bowling line-up, and the fact that they had five seamers plus Rashid, was always going to be a challenge. We didn’t get the start we wanted, and they were able to capitalise the whole way through. It was a really good bowling performance; we saw a hostile spell by Rabada and Siraj to start up, and then Jason Holder was exceptional with his lengths tonight.”
After the early dismissals of Abhishek and Head, SRH chose to hold back the in-form Heinrich Klaasen, who usually bats at No. 4, came in at No. 6, with Smaran Ravichandran and Salil Arora sent ahead of him. Vettori said the change in batting order was a result of the team’s top-order collapse.
“When it’s 23 for 3, the fact that we sent Smaran in, we knew that we wanted to push Klaasen back a little bit to have more of an opportunity through those middle stages. Sometimes you have to sit back and say it was a really good bowling performance and when you’re put in that situation, you sometimes make mistakes.
“I don’t put any blame on the batting unit; they’ve been exceptional this year. Every team throughout the IPL is going to have their small blips once in a while and ours was tonight, but I don’t see any reason why they won’t bounce back,” he explained.
