Sunrisers Hyderabad head coach Brian Lara was disappointed by his side’s batting performance against two-time champions Kolkata Knight Riders on Thursday. The former West Indian legend stated that his team gifted the victory to the visiting side.
In a Chase of 172 runs, Sunrisers Hyderabad showed great intent in the powerplay but lost wickets in quick succession to put their side in deep trouble losing their openers Mayank Agarwal and Abhishek Sharma in quick time and also losing the wickets of Rahul Tripathi and Harry Brook.
Sunrisers Hyderabad’s standout performer of the season Heinrich Klaasen formed a partnership with their skipper Aiden Markram, to give his side a real chance to chase down, before being dismissed for 36 runs off 20 balls by Shardul Thakur.
Speaking to the media, after the sixth loss in the league stage, Brian Lara said that the team once again failed to perform in the powerplay and lauded their finisher Heinrich Klaasen for bringing their side into the game and feels that the top-order batter should have taken the responsibility to win the game in good batting wicket.
“We keep losing a couple of wickets in powerplay and that always sets you back a bit. We again ask (Heinrich) Klassen, who has been batting tremendously for us, to do all the hard work. He is coming in at No.6, we have got five quality players before him. It’s always been a task for him,” Brian Lara said.
“The batters obviously will know the responsibility of winning such a game on a good batting track but we are unable to do it, I would say that we had a game to win and we have to hold our hands up and say they didn’t beat us we lost the game. The game was in our hands and we lost the game,”
Sunrisers Hyderabad has suffered their sixth loss in the league stage against KKR as their batters could not step up in the important match against the Nitish Rana side.
Sunil Narine And Varun Chakravarthy Are All World Class Spinners – Brian Lara
Former West Indies legend Brian Lara was full of praise for Kolkata Knight Riders spinners Sunil Narine and Varun Chakravarthy for their exceptional bowling in the death overs to defend 38 runs in the final five overs, as the Tamil Nadu spinner conceded 12 runs in his final three overs to tilt the game in the favour of the two-time champions in Hyderabad.
“They are quality spinners. We have seen that as a trend that as the tournament goes on spinners are coming into play. The likes of Narine, and Chakravarthy, are all world-class spinners,” Brian Lara added.
“We did put on a very good partnership (Aiden Markram and Klassen). We got ourselves right back in the game with a couple of big overs. Then again we lost a couple of wickets at a very crucial stage of the match,” he concluded.
Aiden Markram and Heinrich Klaasen’s partnership brought the team back in the game before they lost the wickets in the crucial time.