Chennai: SunRisers Hyderabad (SRH) skipper David Warner hit out at his team’s batsmen for playing cross-batted shots against left-arm spinner Shahbaz Ahmed and not building partnerships after SRH lost to Royal Challengers Bangalore by six runs at the M.A. Chidambaram Stadium here Wednesday.
“A very big, bitter pill to swallow. We needed two set batsmen at the end, but we failed to do that. We needed to build a partnership and play proper cricket shots,” said Warner after the match.
“I was quite disappointed with how we went — cross-batted shots against left-arm orthodox (Shahbaz Ahmed. It hurts,” added Warner.
Warner himself scored an impressive half-century, 54 off 37 balls, and set Hyderabad on the path to victory. However, the remaining batsmen floundered.
Hyderabad lost track in the 17th over when three of their hard-hitters, Jonny Bairstow, Manish Pandey and Abdus Samad fell while trying to hit the ball for six against the turn of left-arm spinner Shahbaz Ahmed. They all fell in one over, playing cross-batted shots.
Warner, however, is hopeful his team will do well in upcoming matches.
“We know how to approach in the upcoming games. We have another three games here and I think the wickets are going to get better. We need minimum damage in the first six overs and play simple cricket,” added Warner who said that teams batting second should have won all the games in Chennai even though they struggled to chase modest targets.
IANS