Sunrisers Hyderabad coach Tom Moody does not want his team to fall into the trap of concentrating all their energy and focus in containing Glenn Maxwell when his side takes on Kings XI Punjab in Sharjah.
Maxwell has hogged the limelight in the IPL so far, playing two blistering knocks of 95 and 89 to help his side successfully chase huge targets and beat Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals.
So, it was no surprise that the first thing media wanted to know from Moody was how he planned to tackle the 25-year-old Australian.
“Like for any other player, we have done a thorough review and analysis of Maxwell,” said the former Australian star.
“A lot of our players are pretty familiar with him, given (David) Warner and (Aaron) Finch play with him and our assistant coach, Simon Helmot, coaches him in Melbourne. So we are pretty aware of what his strengths are.
“Look, at the end of the day, he is like any other top-quality player. When they get going, they are pretty hard to stop. But we have also made a conscious effort of recognising there is more than Maxwell to concentrate on. He is in a rich vein of form, but we don’t want to be distracted by just one player.”
Hyderabad lost their opening match in a low-scoring affair against Rajasthan Royals, when their strong batting line-up failed to fire and was dismissed for 133.
But the way their bowlers fought back, gave captain Shikhar Dhawan a lot of heart going into Tuesday night's match.
The Indian opener said: “We are really happy with our preparation. We have got a lot of positives to take from the first match…we did really well as a bowling and fielding unit.
“A few of our batsmen were on the crease for a long time. It’s just about getting our momentum right and we are really excited about tomorrow’s game.”
