Sunrisers Hyderabad team mentor VVS laxman on Friday urged senior batsmen in the team to come good with the bat and help the team get some points in the last phase of the league to qualify for the playoffs.
“There’s no doubt that Shikhar is our premier batsman, given the form and the confidence he has. In saying that, we have other batsmen who are talented and have done well. Shikhar wasn’t there for the first few games and a lot of youngsters like Hanuma Vihari, Akshath Reddy did well,” laxman said.
“But we would love to do much better as a batting unit and especially for our experienced batsmen like Sangakkara and White to show some form, which they haven’t so far. The remaining five league games are very important in terms of the tournament and if they get some runs we will be able to post huge totals,” he added.
Sunrisers’ bowling unit has impressed one and all in the tournament so far and won them almost all the matches this season. With the likes of Dale Steyn, Ishant Sharma and Amit Mishra, they have been able to restrict even the best of the batting sides, the MS Dhoni-led CSK, who scored 224 against SH, being an exception. laxman said it hurts to lose a match with such a huge margin (77 runs) but it is important to learn from the mistakes.
“You hurt when you lose a game like that (loss to CSK by 77 runs) and we did too. We were really disappointed to lose so heavily against CSK. But it’s important to learn and move forward,” laxman said.
“But still, whichever team we play against, knows the strength of our bowling and respect our attack. I think we have done well as a bowling unit and our bowlers have won a lot of matches for us, especially some close games,” he added.
Sunrisers opposition in the next match on Saturday, Kings XI Punjab, too have problems with the consistency of their batting. They have so far largely depended on David Miller but considering their position in the tournament, coach Darren lehmann emphasised the need of contribution from all the batsmen in the team.
“There is no doubt we want them to fire in unison, we’re under pressure and it’s now or never,” lehmann said. “Most times if you’ve observed, we’ve done 80 percent of the things right only to let it slip away from there,” he added.
Asked if he would be making some changes in the team for Saturday’s match, lehmann said they have explored all the options available to them and nothing worked for them.
“Change is something one always looks for when results are not going your way. But really with just four games to go, you can’t do much when you’ve explored all options, we’ll see how it goes,” he said.