Sunrisers Hyderabad captain Kane Williamson believes losing the services of Washington Sundar for the best part of their bowling innings was a struggle for them after losing against Chennai Super Kings by 13 runs at the Maharashtra Cricket Association Stadium, Pune on Sunday.
Sundar, who is the lead spinner of the team, injured himself while fielding at the boundary rope before not even bowling a single over. Thus, Williamson had to use Aiden Markram and Shashank Singh to fill in his overs.
The part-timers conceded 46 runs in their four overs without picking any wicket. Meanwhile, CSK posted a par score of 202-2 after Williamson won the toss and decided to bowl first. Ruturaj Gaikwad and Devon Conway added a gargantuan alliance of 182 runs for the opening stand, which is the highest for CSK in the IPL history.
Both the openers batted at the top of their game to help their team post a par score. Gaikwad was the aggressor in the partnership as he timed the ball to perfection whereas Conway played a second fiddle. Gaikwad scored a fine knock of 99 runs while Conway scored 85.
On the other hand, SRH couldn’t keep up with the required run rate as they kept losing wickets at regular intervals. Nicholas Pooran scored 64 runs from 33 balls but his efforts went in vain as the other batters couldn’t support him.
Kane Williamson said in the post-match press conference, “When anyone gets over 200, it’ll always be a challenge chasing it down. I thought we responded well to it, but they kept us under pressure with the total they had. We did show a lot of fight and were unlucky at times with some things that didn’t go our way. It was a bit slower (on the pitch), we did try our best, but losing Washy (Sundar) for the best part of the bowling innings was a struggle for us. Still, we can look back at the game with a lot of positives, we came up against quality spinners, and at the end of the day, we did show a lot of fight. We just need to stay connected, we’re playing well and did so in the first half of the tournament (talking about the 5 straight wins). We just need to touch on a few things, shape well and come back stronger in the next game.”
After winning five matches on the bounce, SRH has lost two games in a row and they will look to get back to winning ways. The Orange Army will next face Delhi Capitals at the Brabourne Stadium, Mumbai on Thursday.
