Sunrisers Hyderabad coach Brian Lara disappointed with batters’ show

I prefer if my batters are a bit more enterprising and take advantage in Powerplay, said Brian Lara

Hyderabad: Sunrisers Hyderabad’s batting line-up once again failed to show up as they suffered their fifth loss chasing a below-part 144-run target. The home team ended up with 137/6 falling short of the victory by seven runs.

Brian Lara, coach Sunrisers Hyderabad, was disappointed with the batters’ show and felt that they should have chased down the target easily. “There were no devils in the pitch, and we could have been more proactive throughout the innings. We left everything too late. I prefer if my batters are a bit more enterprising and take advantage in Powerplay. We allowed them to take wickets in the middle and cramp us,” he said after the loss.

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Sunrisers never looked on course the way they started the innings scoring just 36 off the powerplay overs. “Yes, in the first 15 overs we should have been in a much better position. I don’t feel let down by anyone as a coach whatever the situation presents. My players are not going out there to fail. Their No.1 priority is to cross the line. Yes, the bowlers did a great job to restrict Delhi to such a below par score on this wicket. We should have won the game,” he said.

After the previous match, Lara revealed that the combination of Harry Brook and Abhishek Sharma will be given a long rope as openers. But on Monday, Mayank Agarwal returned to his usual spot to open. Speaking on it, he said, “He (Mayank) has years of experience in the IPL and we felt we needed someone to hold the innings together and also a left-hander like Abhishek Sharma at No.5 and he played a nick knock in Kolkata the other night,” he said.

Meanwhile, Capitals’ chinaman bowler Kuldeep Yadav said they always believed that they could defend the total. “100 per cent we believed as a team and as a bowling unit we did really well throughout the tournament and this was our chance to show. I thought we bowled really well in the powerplay, giving away 35-36 runs. Thereafter myself and Axar, we just kept ourselves in the game in the middle phase and in the last four overs, Nortje and Mukesh bowled really well,” he said.

Speaking on Mukesh Kumar’s final over, where he conceded just five runs defending 13 runs, he said, “He bowled well in the last game as well. He is playing his first IPL, he is improving day by day. Bowling in the death overs is never easy.”

He further added that they need to improve their batting to record favourable results. “Well, when we meet Sunrisers again in Delhi in a couple of days, we hope to keep the momentum going with a two-in-two wins. We lost the first five games, we did well in bowling and fielding, we need to improve in batting and probably we will do that in the coming games,” Kuldeep concluded.