IPL 2023: We should have chased down that total comfortably – SRH head coach Brian Lara

Sunrisers Hyderabad head coach Brian Lara feels they should have down the total of 145 runs comfortably against Delhi Capitals at the Rajiv Gandhi International Cricket Stadium, Hyderabad on Monday. The home team was in a shoo-in position in the run-chase at 69-1 but lost the next four wickets for only 16 runs to find themselves behind the eighth ball at 85-5.

Axar Patel got the wicket of well-settled Mayank Agarwal in the 12th over of the innings and from there on, the skid started for SRH. As the hosts kept losing wickets at regular intervals, the required run rate kept soaring high.

SRH’s middle order collapsed like a pack of cards as Rahul Tripathi, Aiden Markram, and Abhishek Sharma were all dismissed cheaply. Heinrich Klaasen and Washington Sundar scored 31 and 24 runs respectively but it was not enough in the end.

Mukesh Kumar was able to defend 13 runs in the final over as he nailed his yorkers and conceded only five runs.

In a post-match press conference, Lara commented: “We should have chased down that total comfortably. We are not going to use the excuse of low scores not being chased down. It’s fair to say our bowlers did a good job and our batters needed to do better.”

“We should have won that game. But moving on, we have seven games left and everyone should know what the equation is. We’ve got to regroup quickly. Our backs are against the wall, and there is no doubt about that. We need to take more responsibility moving forward. It’s a challenge, but that’s life.”

Lara, who was known for his flamboyant batting, urged his batters to be more enterprising. SRH batters have failed to deliver the goods for the team so far in the tournament.

“There were no devils in the pitch, and we could have been more proactive throughout the innings. We left everything too late. I prefer if my batters are a bit more enterprising and take advantage in powerplay. We allowed them to take wickets in the middle and cramp us.”

Meanwhile, Mayank Agarwal top-scored for SRH with 49 runs. In fact, Agarwal was moved down the order in the previous match but was once again promoted to open the innings with Harry Brook.

“Mayank Agarwal moving down the order was not successful. He’s got a lot of years in the IPL, so he has that experience. We felt that we needed someone to hold the innings together. Few games ago, Abhishek [Sharma] had a nice knock at Kolkata batting at No. 5. We felt that we need that left-hander in the middle overs against spin.”

Sunrisers Hyderabad will once again take on Delhi Capitals at the Arun Jaitley Stadium, Delhi on Saturday.