IPL 2022: T Natarajan, Washington Sundar’s injuries threw SRH’s season off: Tom Moody

SunRisers Hyderabad head coach Tom Moody reckons injuries to their key players such as T Natarajan and Washington Sundar threw their season off. The Orange Army didn’t get off to a good start in Tata IPL 2022 as they lost their opening two matches.

However, the Kane Williamson-led team bounced back stronger as they won five matches in a row and thus they were one of the favorites to qualify for the playoff stages. But SRH could only manage a solitary win in their next seven matches to veer off the track.

In fact, SRH’s bowling battery of T Natarajan, Washington Sundar, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, and Umran Malik were playing a major role in the success of the team. However, when Natarajan and Washington Sundar had to miss matches due to their respective injuries, it led to the downfall of the team.

“The injuries that we had in the middle of the tournament with Washington Sundar and Natarajan really threw us a little bit. We found it difficult to recapture that winning momentum,” said head coach Tom Moody, speaking on SRH’s official Youtube channel.

Meanwhile, SRH was not able to win close games and it did come to bite them in the end. SRH were in a shoo-in position against Gujarat Titans in their eighth match of the season but ended up losing that game after Rahul Tewatia and Rashid Khan played fine knocks. SRH’s losing streak started from this game and they could not return to their best.

Former Australian all-rounder reckons SRH will have a lot of work to do in the next season of the Tata IPL.

“We’ve got plenty to work on. There’s no question of that. And we are aware of that. We would have liked to have found ourselves further up the table. But a couple of incidents in the middle phase of this tournament just threw us a little bit.”

“That game against GT, where we lost in the last couple of overs when they chased down what we thought at the time, was going to be a near-impossible task. But it shows you the nature of T20 cricket.”

Though SRH could not qualify for the playoff stages, players like Abhishek Sharma, Aiden Markram, Umran Malik, and Rahul Tripathi were big positives for them.