Legendary Sunil Gavaskar has questioned Sunrisers Hyderabad’s batting unit for their mundane performance in the ongoing Indian Premier League. The Orange Army have registered a solitary win in five matches as they haven’t been at their best.
SRH posted 286 runs in their season’s opener against Rajasthan Royals but since then they have been able to go past the 170-run mark on a single occasion.
Gavaskar reckons the opposition bowlers have found a way of keeping the SRH batters at bay after they took them by surprise in the previous season.
Writing in his column for Sportstar, Gavaskar wrote, “There is something about speed, isn’t there? Speed thrills but also sometimes kills. Last year, the Sunrisers Hyderabad, with their openers Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma, set up a new template for how to bat in the Powerplay as well as beyond. Their batting was like youngsters in their fancy sports cars going through traffic red lights and not being caught.”
“They batted at breakneck speed, taking the opposition completely by surprise, and as a result, their team came very close to crossing the 300-run mark in the IPL. This year, in the first match, SRH went through the red light without being caught. But just as the traffic police get smarter and capture those offending cars, so too have the bowlers of IPL teams started to put the brakes on not just SRH but also other teams trying to emulate them.”
The former Indian opener added that SRH batters must come up with better plans in the upcoming matches to turn the tables.
“SRH have now, at the time of writing, lost four consecutive matches, where the top three have not made much of a contribution. Bowling slower deliveries and mixing them with the odd one into the ribcage of the batters has resulted in them holing out to the fielder at deep square-leg and being dismissed in the Powerplay itself. The batters will certainly have to find a new way to try and breach the red lights once again,” Gavaskar wrote in the same column.
SRH will next take on Punjab Kings at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium, Hyderabad on Saturday
