IPL 2022: We need to improve – Kane Williamson on SRH’s woes with no-balls

Sunrisers Hyderabad suffered a heavy defeat as they lost their opening match of IPL 2022 by a big margin of 61 runs against Rajasthan Royals at the Maharashtra Cricket Association Stadium, Pune on Tuesday.

The Orange Army conceded a huge total of 210 runs after Kane Williamson won the toss and decided to bat first.

Sunrisers Hyderabad’s opening bowling pair of Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Umran Malik bowled three no-balls in the first 21 balls. Kumar also dismissed Jos Buttler off a no-ball in the first over and the Englishman punished them as he went on to score 35 from 28 balls.

Sanju Samson played a fine knock of 55 runs off just 27 balls as he timed the ball to perfection. Shimron Hetmyer added the finishing touches as he scored 32 runs off just 13 balls.

On the other hand, Sunrisers Hyderabad was just blown away by the opening spell of Prasidh Krishna and Trent Boult. Krishna was able to extract extra bounce whereas Boult got the ball to swing both ways to trouble the opposition batters. SRH were reduced to 14-3 after the powerplay overs, which is their lowest score in the IPL.

Kane Williamson said in the post-match presentation, “We started beautifully with the ball, we had our opportunities. In all the games so far, there has been some swing and assistance with the new ball. You want to make some inroads, we looked very likely but unfortunately some fine margins in this game didn’t go our way. It was a very good surface, Rajasthan played outstandingly well. For us, there’s still a number of things to touch on and improve on as a side. You got to keep your chin up and move on to the next one. It (no-balls) is not something common to us, it was a surprise in a lot of ways and we certainly don’t want to do that moving forward. When you take a wicket off a no-ball, it’s never nice. It’s important for us to look at areas where we can improve.”

On the other hand, Kane Williamson heaped praise on young sensation Umran Malik. The fast bowler from Kashmir clocked 150 kmph and once again impressed with his lightning speed. Malik took two wickets but he was a tad expensive as he conceded 39 runs in his quota of four overs.

Kane Williamson added, “Incredibly exciting, he’s got that raw pace, hopefully he continues to evolve as a cricketer. He’s young, got some experience last year which was really valuable and I’m sure he’ll just continue to get better. For us as a side and as a young team, we want to make sure that we stay engaged throughout, be nice and clear on what we’re trying to execute. With the bat, it was tough, the ball moved early on we needed to navigate that as well as we could. Today wasn’t our day.”

SRH was totally dominated by Rajasthan Royals and they would need to come up with better performances to stay competitive in the tournament. Kane Williamson-led team will next face Lucknow Super Giants on Monday at the Dr. DY Patil Sports Academy.