Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) pacer Sandeep Sharma believes that their team is widely different in the presence of David Warner.
Under David Warner’s captaincy, SRH won their only IPL trophy in IPL 2016. The left-handed opening batsman has scored 2,664 runs for this side in 60 innings at an average of 53.28. He is the leading IPL run-scorer for SRH.
David Warner missed the entire IPL 2018 due to his involvement in the controversial sandpaper gate incident in March 2018. Under Kane Williamson’s captaincy, SRH finished that tournament as the runners-up.
Now, David Warner has returned to the side and has already started to show his class. SRH began their IPL 2019 journey on last Sunday (24th March) when they met the host side Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) at Eden Gardens (Kolkata). Though SRH lost that thrilling match, David Warner played an extraordinary innings of 85 runs off 53 balls.
Talking about his return, Sandeep Sharma told CricketCountry, “When he returned this year, it never looked like he was apart from the team, [so] his return will make a huge difference to Hyderabad’s chances.”
The 25-year-old Indian pacer Sandeep Sharma has also praised David Warner’s guidance quality to the youngsters.
“He’s quite an easy-going guy and speaks to me on many aspects such as training and nutrition. I have never played with him and like me, there are others in the side. He also sits with us and keeps telling us that all the teams who have won in the IPL, their young Indian players have done well. He guides us youngsters on how to go about our preparations. It’s always good to get such inputs from a player like David Warner.”
We played better than Kolkata – Sandeep Sharma
SRH was very close claiming a comfortable victory in their opening game of this season. After SRH managed to score 181/3 in 20 overs, KKR was mostly under pressure while chasing. The host side needed to score 53 runs in the last three overs to win that game. However, Andre Russell’s consistent power hitting helped the KKR side to snatch a remarkable victory. The Caribbean batsman remained not out on 49 runs off 19 balls as KKR chased the target in 19.4 overs after losing four wickets.
Disappointed Sandeep Sharma claimed that they played better than KKR in that match, but the last three overs made the entire difference.
He said, “We played better than Kolkata, but those last three overs made the difference. It was disappointing to lose the first game. As a bowling unit, we should have defended that target. It was the season’s first game, so we will sit and talk about our execution and then try to reflect on that.”
Sandeep Sharma also credited Andre Russell for that brilliant innings.
The SRH pacer added, “Everyone knows what Russell is capable of. He is one of hardest hitters in the game. We tried to execute our skills but fell short. Credit to Andre Russell. There’s been no dent to our confidence, this is not the first time when he’s hit bowlers out of the park, but it’s important how we bounce back.”
We have many X-factors in our team – Sandeep Sharma
However, Sandeep Sharma is confident about the present SRH side. He believes that they have many match-winners to lead them to win the IPL 2019 trophy.
He said, “We have many X-factors in our team, players like Kane Williamson, Warner, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Rashid Khan, who on a given day can win matches for the side purely due to their performances. Our team spirit and the bond that we share has been the best I’ve seen.”
SRH will play their second match of this season on this Friday (29th March). It will be their first home game of this season when they will face Rajasthan Royals (RR) on this Friday night.