Following the match against Rajasthan Royals where Sunrisers Hyderabad were handed 55-run defeat, head coach Trevor Bayliss admitted that it was ‘very challenging’ for the team to play without David Warner.
Earlier, David Warner had been stripped of captaincy and Kiwi captain Kane Williamson was handed the reins of the squad instead. Under Warner, SRH had won just one game so far and needed to arrest their downward slide in the IPL table. However, it was surprising to find out Warner being dropped from the starting XI in the match against RR.
“It was very difficult (to drop Warner from the starting XI). He’s a guy who’s had so much success for the team but that’s the way we wanted to go, try and get a different combination for us,” said Bayliss at the post-match press conference.
He also went on to add that Warner was disappointed by the decision. “Like any player who gets dropped, he was disappointed. As you must have seen tonight, he ran as a 12th man doing as much as he could for the team, for the boys. He’d be cleaning up the bottles at the end, God knows. He’s been good, he’s been talking to Kane and some of the players, giving them advice. Yeah, but he’s obviously disappointed,” admitted the former England coach.
The World-Cup winning coach also remarked that playing without a player the stature of David Warner will be ‘very challenging.’ However, he doesn’t think the team will have any problems adjusting to new captain Kane Williamson who has led the side previously.
Kane had led the side to the IPL 2018 Final when they were defeated by Chennai Super Kings, falling one step short of winning their second crown. He had also won the Orange Cap that year.
“Very challenging without David as a player and [also with] a new captain. Look, I don’t think there would be too much of a problem there. Kane has been the captain of the team before and obviously, in the last 2 or 3 years he has the experience of captaining New Zealand. Look, we just didn’t play very well tonight (sic), and obviously, one guy [Jos Buttler] played extremely well, so that’s the way the T20 game goes sometimes,” concluded Bayliss.
