Sunrisers Hyderabad head coach Daniel Vettori admitted the team hasn’t been able to put a collective performance in the ongoing IPL 2025 after suffering a seven-wicket loss against Mumbai Indians at the Rajiv Gandhi International Cricket Stadium, Hyderabad on Wednesday.
The Orange Army could only post 143 runs on the board as their top order crumbled like a pack of cards. The home team was reduced to 13-4 as Trent Boult and Deepak Chahar bagged two wickets apiece in the Powerplay overs.
After the early destruction, Heinrich Klaasen and Abhinav Manohar were able to steady the ship and added 99 runs for the sixth wicket. While Klaasen scored 71 runs, Manohar played a crucial knock of 43 runs when the chips were down.
On the other hand, MI were able to comfortably chase down the score with 26 balls to spare after Rohit Sharma scored 70 runs whereas Suryakumar Yadav scored 40 off 19 balls.
“I think obviously, the toss was important. We wanted to bowl first because the conditions were vastly different, [it was a different] wicket to the previous ones. I mean, we’ve discussed that it’s a 280, 250 wicket. So conditions changed dramatically. So to be able to get that assessment early around what a par score was, is obviously difficult.
“When you go in there early on, you’re trying to obviously maximise that power play. And unfortunately, we weren’t able to, and we kept losing wickets. Once we realised that the surface wasn’t what we anticipated, then we needed to build towards that sort of 180 score. That, unfortunately, is difficult to do when you’re 24 for four after the power play.”
SRH were reduced to 35-5 against MI, and once again, their assessment of the pitch was not up to the mark as they continued to play with an aggressive approach.
“Once we got through that, maybe two overs, the assessment was that it was not the 250-260 wicket that this has been the last couple of games. And we obviously went out of depth. I mean, the dismissal of Ishan is obviously disappointing and that puts pressure on everyone coming in.
“When you’re in a powerplay situation, you still want to try and maximise those two fielders out. So there’s still some emphasis or onus on the batsmen that are there to try and score some runs. And today was very unfortunate that they couldn’t get it done.
“Understanding what a good score is, what a par score is and being able to set that up. Travis and Abhi [Abhishek Sharma], when they go, they’re very aggressive and they take the game on and it’s led to a lot of success for us. When they don’t succeed, then it’s the responsibility of the other batsmen. And potentially that’s what we haven’t had this season, around the ability for partnerships, for one or two guys to step up in games. We got two today, but it was just a little bit too late for us.
SRH have managed only two wins in eight games and they are staring at the exit doors. Sunrisers Hyderabad will next take on Chennai Super Kings at the MA Chidambaram Stadium, Chennai, on Friday.
