Sunrisers Hyderabad’s all-rounder Vijay Shankar has revealed that the ploy was to take the pace off the ball against Mumbai Indians at the MA Chidambaram Stadium, Chennai on Saturday. MI had got off to a good start as they added 53 runs in the powerplay overs with their skipper Rohit Sharma looking good.

However, Shankar was able to put the breaks on as he got the big wicket of Rohit Sharma and then also flummoxed Suryakumar Yadav with a slower delivery. The medium pacer conceded 19 runs in the three overs he bowled and scalped two wickets.

Furthermore, Shankar scored 28 runs from 25 balls during SRH’s run-chase of 151 runs but couldn’t get the support from the other end. Thus, Shankar’s efforts went in vain as SRH lost their third match of the season by 13 runs.

“I just tried to take the pace off. With the new ball, it was coming on nicely to the bat, we just had a plan of taking the pace off as much as we can. There was good pace and it was also sitting up nicely when we were bowling at normal speed,” said Shankar after the innings.

Meanwhile, SRH have struggled to get going in the middle-overs and Shankar will aim to come up with his best. In fact, the medium pacer had done a decent job in the previous season of the league as he had conceded his runs at a parsiminous economy rate of 6.22.

Thus, Shankar can provided a couple of overs to David Warner. However, the right-hander from Tamil Nadu will aim to pull up his socks in the batting department as the Orange Army will want more from him.

SRH suffered their third defeat of the season and they will aim to make a roaring comeback in the coming matches. Their middle-order has led to their downfall and they will need to come up with a collective effort.

SRH will want that Kane Willamson soon recovers from his elbow injury. The David Warner-led team will play their next match against Punjab Kings at the same venue of MA Chidambaram Stadium, Chennai on 21st April.