Sunrisers Hyderabad batting coach Hemang Badani was pleased by Abdul Samad’s finishing against Rajasthan Royals in a high-octane encounter at Jaipur’s Sawai Mansingh Stadium. The Aiden Markram-led side secured their fourth victory in the league stage of IPL 2023 to give themselves a chance to qualify for the playoffs.
In the run chase of 215 runs against Sanju Samson-side, Sunrisers Hyderabad batted with a brilliant intent to score runs in the power play, as their opener Anmolpreet Singh and Abhishek Sharma gave an explosive start, with Rahul Tripathi scoring 47 off 29 balls and Henrich Klaasen played a crucial knock off 26 in 12 balls. Besides, Glenn Phillips smashed 25 off 7 balls with Abdul Samad taking up the role of a finisher.
Speaking to the media, after their victory against Rajasthan Royals, Hemang Badani credited Samad for his calm and composed finishing against RR and revealed that Samad took ownership of their previous loss for not finishing the game against the two-time champions.
“I have to give full marks to Samad. He was the first one to come up to me [after] the previous game and said, ‘I should have finished the game’. He took ownership of it and said that, with nine off six balls, more often than not batters would finish games for their side. He didn’t finish it well and he was a little unhappy about it,” Hemang Badani said.
The former Tamil Nadu skipper said that Samad has missed out few opportunities to finish the game for his side in the previous game and said that he wanted to do a few special things for the side being the retained player of the team also revealed that Indian youngster always wanted to make his presence count for the team.
“He had a similar instance with the game against Mumbai. That again was a game that he felt he could have finished. He was hurting within and was like, ‘I have been around with SRH. This is my third year. I am a retained player and I want to make it count. I want to try and show them that I am worth your time and investment’.”
With 17 required in six balls, Abdul Samad batted brilliantly to finish the game for his side, With four needed off the final ball which happened due to the preceding no-ball, The Indian finisher held his nerves and smashed a tremendous hit to seal the deal for the Aiden Markram-led Sunrisers.
Abdul Samad Has Worked On A Few Things – Hemang Badani
Hemang Badani disclosed that Abdul Samad worked on a few aspects of his game to improve his style of gameplay and also feels that other teams bowled on specific areas to control his scoring rate in previous games and was delighted that his effort came off in this game.
“He’s ensured that he stays strong. He’s worked on a few things. A few sides have tried doing certain things to him, which I am not going to talk about. But we’ve tried to work on that and one of them did come off,” Hemang Badani added.
Sunrisers Hyderabad will take on the Lucknow Super Giants in the next game and will look to win their remaining games to give their side the best chance to qualify for the playoffs in this edition of the Indian Premier League.