A turning point the game between Royal Challengers Bangalore and the Sunrisers Hyderabad was the injury to Hyderabad’s pace bowler Ashish Nehra. Nehra could bowl just 2.1 overs before he limped off the park owing to a groin injury. In Nehra’s absence, the Royal Challengers batsmen made merry as Virat Kohli and AB De Villiers were simply unstoppable.
Post the game, skipper David Warner admitted that Nehra’s absence from the game hurt his side terribly as it allowed Kohli and De Villiers to comfortably settle in. Warner also defended his strategy of using part timers to full in Nehra’s quota of overs. Warner said that in Nehra’s absence, he wanted Mutafizur Rahman to bowl at the death.
“When you look at the outcome of the game, it really hurts when the bowler goes down. You have to reassess your plans and when two batsmen are going hard here, it’s very difficult to stop them,” Warner said. “When they got in, we were trying to minimize the boundaries. And then, in the end, Sarfaraz came and played his innings. We started well and gave away just 12 runs in the first three over but then a bowler went down and we gave away 63 runs in the last four overs and one of those overs went for just 3 or 4 runs,” Warner added.
“One bowler going down really hurts and your plans are thrown off the track. You have to think of your feet and since the eighth over I was trying to figure our what to do. We got the wicket, which helped a bit, but then Sarfaraz played fantastically,” added Warner.
He further explained his choice of saving Mustafizur Rahman for the death overs against the likes of Shane Watson. “I couldn’t bring Mustafizur back early because a bowler went down. I had Karn Sharma who was bowling at the short end and then I had Ashish Reddy so I bowled him a couple of overs. “If AB or Virat didn’t get out, I was going to bowl Mustafizur. We got a wicket and then Karn bowled three very good balls but then Shane hit him for three sixes. That’s the nature of the game and that’s what happens,” Warner said.