Sunrisers Hyderabad mentor VVS Laxman was understandably a delighted man after witnessing a performance more worthy of a side that was looked upon as one of the strongest sides at the start of this year’s IPL.
Despite having batsmen of the calibre of Shikhar Dhawan, Aaron Finch and David Warner, and a sensational bowling line-up of Dale Steyn, Bhuwaneshwar Kumar, Amit Mishra and Karn Sharma, Hyderabad lost their first two matches.
During that time their much vaunted batting line-up hardly made any contribution.
Yesterday, in their four wicket win over Delhi Daredevils, all top three batsmen contributed significantly and Laxman said: “It was very important for us because we have some very strong hitters up the order in Shikhar, Warner and Finch – some of the most dangerous batsmen in world cricket.
“It was very important for us that they clicked. The way they batted today, we didn’t require the other batsmen to come in. So we’re very happy and we hope they continue in the future also.”
Against Delhi, the bowlers struggled a bit and it turned out to be close in the end, but Laxman was full of praise for them.
Bowling is something we had done consisten-tly well last year, but we shouldn’t put too much pressure on our bowling attack,” said Laxman.
“Usually, you are supposed to get the par total on these wickets, and not think that we can defend any total with our bowlers. But we do have an excellent bowling attack, which is why we are playing these four regular bowlers, and all of them are wicket-taking bowlers.
“We are really happy to have put the runs on the board and played to our potential because in the first two games we didn’t do that with the bat,” he added.
Delhi opener Quinton de Kock, who scored 48 in 30 balls in his first match of the tournament, said despite playing at his best, the team was happy that captain Kevin Pietersen was back in action.
“Well, he hasn’t played for a while, at least against proper international players with the finger injury,” said de Kock.
“Yeah, it was actually good for him to come out now and hit a couple of balls. We have lost the match, but it will probably do good for us in the rest of the tournament.”
