Mumbai Indians seem to be back on track with consecutive wins and have also put a pause on Sunrisers Hyderabad’s winning momentum at the IPL 2023 after defeating them on Tuesday, April 19, at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium in Hyderabad.
After suffering a 14-run defeat at the hands of Mumbai Indians on Tuesday, Sunrisers Hyderabad Head Coach Brian Lara feels that losing wickets in the powerplay has been setting them back.
The Sunrisers’ coach reckons that their middle order is still a work in progress and that they need a batter who can finish the game off for them.
MI Picked Up Key Wickets Consistently And Won The Match
Chasing a target of 193 runs, SRH’s centurion from their previous game- Harry Brook- was dismissed very early, scoring mere nine runs and Rahul Tripathi too walked back scoring just seven. Mayank Agarwal and skipper Aiden Markram stabilized the innings in the middle, but the former took time to get going while the latter was dismissed in the ninth over.
Though Agarwal was the top-scorer for SRH in the game scoring 48 off 41, he struck at 117.07, clearly suggesting that he struggled to score against Mumbai’s bowling attack. Lara feels that SRH could have won the contest and that they were going good in the game, but the frequent fall of wickets led to the team losing momentum, and eventually losing the match.
Brian Lara’s Take On The Game
Brian Lara’s Take On The Game
The team’s head coach Brian Lara was disappointed with their performance and felt that the middle order was very weak. He also said that the middle order is a ‘work in progress’ while addressing the issue, and opined that SRH needed players like David Miller and Rahul Tewatia, who have mastered the art of batting in the middle order under pressure situations.
During the post-match press conference, Lara said that “It’s a work in progress. We need to have guys who are thinking the game throughout right till the end. There are some great examples in the IPL. Tewatia, Miller, we do need that sort of person to understand how to calculate going down, who are the bowlers going to come, and plan properly. We’ve been working on that. We weren’t the best team today (Tuesday). We have to accept that. Mumbai Indians was the better team today.”
He added “I felt we were always in the game and I felt the pitch was maybe more like a 175. It was a little bit slow off the deck. We tried to stay in the game throughout but we lost wickets consistently throughout our chase and it slowed us down. Both Mumbai Indians and us were coming off of back-to-back victories so we knew they were picking up some momentum and I felt that today they played better cricket and came out on top.”
