Hyderabad: The pitch at the Rajiv Gandhi International Cricket Stadium has always been a high-scoring one, but Sunrisers Hyderabad struggled in a five-wicket loss to Lucknow Supergiants on Sunday.
SRH assistant coach James Franklin said they were caught off guard by the behavior on the pitch. After his team lost their first home game, he said: “I think the pitch really caught us off guard, which was a little disappointing. I think you saw that with a couple of our outs. To be fair, I thought LSG played well on the power play. Other than that, they didn’t give us a lot of points,” he said.
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The Sunrisers struggled against a well-disciplined LSG bowling and were reduced to 35/4 in the first 10 overs before finishing on 156/9. LSG only had one goal left to tie the goal.
Franklin praised Nitish Kumar Reddy and Heinrich Klassen for giving the bowlers something to bowl with. “But our batsmen really struggled with the pace of the pitch. Especially once the ball hit the ground, it didn’t come down to the bat. I think their (Nitish and Klassen’s) ability to score runs more freely in the second half of the innings could be attributed to them actually spending some time in the middle. Obviously, the pitch is spread out, so the ability to spin the bat is there,” he opined.
Meanwhile, Super Giants pace spearhead Mohammad Shami said they are working hard behind the scenes to contain the batsmen. “We knew that the Sunrisers batsmen were very aggressive against the bowlers and our plan was to not give them any space, bowl to the slower batsmen and use variations. We knew that the slower batsmen were the hardest to score runs with. When we execute the plan well like this, results will come. I am happy that we executed our plan,” said Shami, who was awarded the Man of the Match with impressive bowling figures of 2/9.
Shami also hit an impressive 18 runs in his four-wicket haul to tie the SRH batsmen. “I worked very hard with the new ball and knew what ball to play in what conditions. It took a lot of hard work. I understood the conditions well and we prepared accordingly,” Shami revealed.
He also believes that working with LSG bowling coach Bharat Arun in the past has helped him. “We all worked together when he was in the Indian team and we know each other well. When you know the support staff and their working style, it becomes easy. It doesn’t take much to join the Lucknow team and adjust. It’s like my second home,” the Indian cricketer added.
