Sunrisers Hyderabad captain Pat Cummins admitted they weren’t good enough with the bat after their eight-wicket loss against Kolkata Knight Riders at the Narendra Modi Stadium, Ahmedabad on Tuesday. After electing to bat first, the Orange Army was skittled out for 159.
SRH openers – Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma – were dismissed cheaply, for naught, and three. Nitish Reddy and Shahbaz Ahmed were also dismissed in the Powerplay overs as SRH were left reeling at 39-4.
Rahul Tripathi was able to hit the ground running and also took on the attack against Sunil Narine. Tripathi scored his 12th IPL fifty but the other batters failed to contribute. Heinrich Klaasen got off to a start as he scored 32 but he failed to convert it into a substantial score.
SRH kept losing wickets at regular intervals and failed to build partnerships throughout their innings.
On the other hand, KKR’s two Iyers – Venkatesh and Shreyas – scored unbeaten knocks of 51 and 58 runs respectively to take their team over the line with 38 balls to spare.
Pat Cummins said after the loss, “Yeah we will try to put this behind quickly, good thing we will have a crack at it (second qualifier). You have those days in T20 cricket where things doesn’t quite work out. We weren’t where we wanted with the bat and obviously couldn’t do much with the ball.”
He added, “Felt that extra batting was important (picking the impact sub) on this wicket. Thought KKR bowled really well, there was a little bit in it early on and the surface got better. We all have played enough cricket, and going to a new venue (Chennai) helps us as well, so we gotta keep this behind and move on.”
Sunrisers Hyderabad’s strength has been their potent batting but they could not bring their best on Tuesday. The Orange Army will either face Royal Challengers Bengaluru or Rajasthan Royals in the second qualifier on Friday at MA Chidambaram Stadium, Chennai.
